Riddle VIZion
by Eliza Farrow
Summary: After hurtling to Earth amid the ruins of their battleship, aliens Viz, Diz, and Quiz are forced to reconcile with each other, and the humans they betrayed. Rebuilding their ship, they have to answer the question; should project Vizion be abandoned, or pursued to the bitter end? When everyone has different answers, finding a solution is harder than it should be.
1. Authors note

I don't know if anyone will read this, being that it's a relitively small, probably dead fandom, but I've loved these games for years and I want to write about it. So, if you are reading this, by some miracle of chance, a hope you enjoy it. Leave a comment if you want, be it constructive criticism, or something you like, or nothing at all; I really don't mind.

—Eliza Farrow.


	2. Chapter 1: Red Alert

_'So this is how it ends for the great Phil Eggtree; stuck on a crappy space shuttle with a moron whose delusions of grandeur ruined my triumphant return, trying to stop the backstabbing second in command. Isn't life just perfect?'_

Understandably, Phil was more than a little irritated with this fresh hell of circumstances. Having looked forward to a hero's welcome after defeating one set of cliché super-villains, he was give nary a pat on the back before being whisked away to meet the second set. Quiz's _excellent_ timing on delivering the bad news did not help matters.

"What do you mean ' _this ship is not equipped with weapons_ '?" Phil demanded. They were hovering right in front of the massive Vizion ship, a prime target for the energising ray waiting to discharge at the earth. Behind the glass of the neighbouring ship, Phil could faintly see the gloating figure of Diz, manning the wheel and frowning at their audacity. He gave the other alien a half-hearted wave; Quiz's plan was a mystery to him too, so he couldn't fault Diz's confusion. Quiz tapped something into a control panel with more determination than certainty. Not being someone with a great deal of knowledge on the inner machinations of spaceships, Phil could only say that the efficient bleeps sounded professional enough. Didn't detract from the fact that they were sitting ducks before icy death with, apparently, no weapons, but hey, maybe it would scare Diz off if they looked authoritative.

"Nope, no weapons. This ship was built to transport the components for the death ray. We have three battle ships; Diz has one of them, the others are still aboard the mothership where you and your friends woke up." Phil raised an eyebrow when Quiz stopped, slight concern morphing cheerfully to begrudging anxiety.

" _Soooooo_...what are we gonna do?"

 ** _Opening communication comms._**

"We're going to talk to him."

Begrudging anxiety suffered a stroke and was replaced with mild panic.

"Close communication comms. Close, Alphimn rot you! Quiz, what's the meaning of this?" Diz's already-nasal voice was tinny and distant over the transmitter, like a horde of irritable wasps that had somehow learnt morse code. It was the sort of sound that gave nails-down-a-blackboard and squeaky-wet-rubber-gloves a run for their money, all while being recognisable as speech. Almost impressive, if you were in the mood to be generous. Phil really wasn't.

"We need to talk Diz." Quiz's voice held as much confidence as a mouse parading naked in front of a large, sexually-perverse cat. "I've temporarily overridden your controls."

"Why?"

"...because...we need to...talk?"

"Is this about the whole 'destroy the earth' scheme?"

"...possibly..."

"Quiz, you useless clod! Learn when to stop meddling, _please_ , before I get it in to my head to teach you myself!" From the way Quiz flinched, Phil could guess that lessons with Diz would be anything but pleasant.

Both sides seemed set to launch in to the classic argument strategy of 'both speaking at the same time, at the tops of your voices, so that neither can be understood' and Phil decided that he was quite content to let them get on with that; it wasn't a three player game and it would turn out laughably useless in the end. With all the attentiveness of his high-school-self doodling in class, he began to fiddle with buttons. In all honesty, it was an activity more depressing than therapeutic; most of the buttons were red, like Viz, others green, like Diz, both of whom were people he would rather forget at the minute. The blue buttons were cool, seeing as Quiz was actually on his side. Unfortunately Quiz had the drawbacks of being useless and being a colour frequently associated with depression. Yep; crappy space shuttle, no weapons, right in the line of fire, and buttons that couldn't sufficiently entertain a toddler. This mission had it all...

Meanwhile, Quiz was pleading fruitlessly with Diz, leaning over the speaker as though hoping to glimpse his old comrade somewhere amid the harsh words.

"You were on my side, Diz! You agreed that earth didn't deserve destruction! What changed?"

"I was wrong. That planet declared its intentions clearly enough when it attempted to capture me, ensnare me in some military base like a common experiment."

Beside him, Phil saw Quiz flinch guiltily and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose; by the names of all of his dream teachers, why did this stupid misconception have to endanger the fate of the world? On the monitor, Diz was still talking.

"I tried to be nice, Quiz, honestly I did. But no; Earth has proven itself to be no better than anywhere else. If I was mistaken here, what else would I be wrong about? What other rotten civilisations would I have spared? First, I'll destroy this deceiving lump of dirt, then I'll find Viz; he'll come round to this change of plan easily enough. After all, I am the smart one." His voice softened, almost imperceptibly, "you can come with us if you want, Quiz; I won't mention any of this to Viz. Everything can go back to normal." Tempting offer though it was, Quiz was given no time to consider it before Phil launched in.

"Viz is alive?" Phil could feel the satisfaction of victory drip, drip, dripping away with caustic glee and a well-earned middle-finger. Diz snorted.

"Oh please, killing fire with ice is something that only happens in children's games. Last transmission from the remains of Viz's ship has it that he's on a nearby asteroid. His remote is intact. He will contact me again when he manages to return to the mothership. This whole sequence of events would have played out much more smoothly if someone," cue a pointed look at a shuffling Quiz, "Had stayed put like I asked them, but no matter. Face it Phil, you didn't defeat V.I. . You barely scratched us."

You know that feeling when a seemingly solid floor suddenly drops from beneath you, no warning, no transition phase between 'floor' and 'not floor'? With the same jarring sense of whiplash disillusionment, Phil saw every instance of victory he had endured that past few days thrown into a perspective that rendered it less than worthless. Something similar to despair took him over.

"Why Diz? Why are you doing this?"

There was no pause between question and answer. Surprisingly (or perhaps, more accurately, disturbingly) Diz's voice, though raised in passionate conviction, retained a guise of reason that was almost believable. That, combined with the swiftness of response, created something that felt eerily normal, yet painfully out of place; like hearing the same advert played on a loop in a dark house, portent of disaster but mundane of itself.

"Because it needs to be done! Because I have seen that, time and time again, evil refuses to recognise itself, refuses to end what it starts, refuses to learn from its mistakes. This universe is imbalanced, Phil, and the only way to save what is good is to destroy the impure. I will have peace. And if the cosmos refuse to learn it on their own, the we will gladly teach them." Phil felt a small shock of fear creep its icy way down his spine. Diz was reminiscent of the extremists and madmen he had seen on television at dream-college. Downplaying the effect of the alien's psychotic words, he returned to his root solution for pear-shaped adventures; quips.

"Ok, you're seriously starting to sound like some sort of mad cult leader, Diz."

This did not produce the desired effect. Like a child throwing a fit, Diz slammed his fist against the dashboard, the impact audible through the transmitter.

"I _am_ a cult leader, Eggtree!"

 _ **Incoming transmission.**_

"I think you'll find that untrue, Diz." Phil sighed, resisting the temptation to throw his hands in the air. The whole gang of quasi-terrorists was back together. Wonderful; frying pan, meet fire.

Viz's grating voice crackled grimly through two sets of transmitters, somehow just as irritated, self-satisfied, and cynical as it had been in person. Quiz was looking less like a confident martyr and more like a child caught in the act of doing something stupid by the second. Had this whole situation not been kind of his fault, Phil might have felt sorry for him.

"Beam me on board, Diz. We've wasted enough time."

"Yes sir." Moving from his position at the helm, Diz leant to input something into a control module to the right. In a low voice clearly meant for Quiz's ears only:

"Last chance Quiz; come back to the ship and we can pretend none of this ever happened." Diz sounded almost pleading now, a strange, near pitiful contrast to the mad dictator of before. For a second Phil struggled to reconcile the two sides in his mind; it was always the quiet ones who snapped. Beside him, Quiz gave a sigh of such unending weariness that it seemed to deflate him; as though the tribulations and stress of these past few days were all that was keeping him together, and without them, he'd simply wither away.

"Diz...I can't do that. These children have taught me that we'd be destroying a planet filled with people that, whatever you throw at them, will keep fighting for their right to survive. They're not all bad...you saw that before."

Over the communication comms, before Diz could offer a response, there was a bright, static snap that corresponded with a flash of blue-white light from the opposing ship. With the same sneering arrogance he had displayed during their first meeting, Viz stalked up to the windshield and smirked down at the transport ship with all the disdain of someone watching a worm crawl into their dropped sandwich. Phil wondered if Quiz was familiar with the phrase 'sweating bullets'.

"What's that clod blathering about, Diz? And why is Zone 5.1 complaining about a security breach? That facility hasn't been used in years. Nothing important could have got out, but every five minutes they message me complaining that 'project V.I. data revival' has been critically compromised. Does that mean anything to you? Diz?" Viz trailed off. Staring up at the hovering craft, Phil felt like he was watching a film that broke the fourth wall too often. He could see the realisation dawn in Diz's eyes, see the shock build, give way to rage, and felt intensely grateful that the alien's glare wasn't directed at him. Quiz held up under the pressure like a wet piece of bread under an anvil.

"Diz, look, I c-can explain, I-I swear—I d-didn't mean—"

" _You_." Even Viz was beginning to look concerned now.

"L-look—I didn't th-think it through that w-well I kn-know but—"

" _You_ kidnapped me." Diz's black eyes seemed to burn through the vacuum of space separating them.

"Diz please just—"

" _You_ used that machine to churn my mind to bits." His hands were white knuckled on the wheel. Well, pale green, but the sentiment was both present and terrifying.

"Listen to me. I—"

"You tried to kill us both!" The last was delivered in a harsh scream, effectively silencing Quiz's verbal scrabbling. Phil was looking determinedly at the dashboard, certain that looking up at the enraged alien would provoke some apocalyptic form of judgement.

The silence hanging between the two vessels transcended an empty idea and became a living thing, cold, immovable, and threatening, the distant hum of the charging laser forming the ripples and frills of its scales, Quiz's hasty, shallow breaths the scrape of it's claws on the gunmetal floor. When Viz finally spoke, voice significantly less confident now, it wasn't as though silence was broken; more as though he had drawn the malevolent attention of this beast.

"What...what does any of that mean, Diz?"

Such simple words were all it took to breach the dam. With that, silence became a story told to children foolish enough to believe that monsters were mythical beasts of legends, and not simply the cruel and the powerful.

" _I told him!_ " Diz howled, windmilling his arms in pent-up frustration, "I said 'stay with the ship, Quiz, I'll take the kids to earth. Viz will establish contact soon and you need to be here to activate a teleportation device' and what does the imbecile do? Galavants off to earth, leaving everything up here unguarded! He even took Nitwit, though God knows why, that lumbering fool was never good for much. But not only that, Viz, he attacked me. I'm the cause of the security breach; he was trying to find out about the ship." Even from that distance, Phil could see that Diz was shaking. "You were going to betray us, weren't you Quiz? You were going to take our projects and run like the coward you truly are."

Quiz was quiet now, breaths not even a whisper, such a contrast to the laboured gasps of before that Phil had to look closely to convince himself that the alien was still alive. One of his blue-skinned hands had drawn into a tight fist, blackish blood leaking from between the fingers. When he lifted his head to meet the accusing stares of his old friends, his eyes were wet. His once quavering voice had darkened and hardened into something bitter and twisted, like a blackened blade digging into stone.

"In your own words, Diz, 'I am a traitor, but not to you'. You and Viz, you're _always_ the ones calling the shots. I just hover in the background with Nitwit and Oswald. For once, I wanted to be able to do _something_ , to take control of a mission. I was going to let you go from Zone 5.1, I swear, I just...wanted some information of my own first. And you, Viz, you didn't need my help to get back on board ship! You always say I'm useless, so it can't have been that hard if you needed me—"

"Enough." Surprisingly, it was Viz's anger strained voice which cut Quiz's ramblings short this time (though, looking at Diz, it may have simply been because rage had pushed the lieutenant past the point of speaking.)

"But I—" Quiz's tottering helplessness had returned in record time, dust in the concentrated spotlight of Viz's assertive command .

"Bring them both on board."

Surrounded by the inescapable field of green light that was the Battle Ship's tractor beam, Phil gave a cynical huff that he hoped was sufficient to cover up his mounting worry. Wasn't there a saying about this? Frying pans and fire? No. Both an understatement and already used. Fire, meet the utterly broiling hellfire that is the molten core of the Earth. Yeah, that summed it up.

Aside from his hitched breathing, Quiz was unresponsive, choosing to look at his shoes rather than face the disappointment of his young companion. Always made to feel like a failure, this was probably a new record for him in terms of letting people down...

 ** _Opening cargo bay doors._**

The scene beyond was taken straight from a thousand sci-fi movies and gave everything the surreal unreality usually enjoyed by those still awake, in the middle of nowhere, at five in the morning. Viz was standing central, arms—all four of them—folded behind him in a coldly stately fashion. Diz was at the helm, turning to glare at Quiz at occasional intervals. Both wore calculating looks, expressions that openly considered your imminent demise and dared you to challenge that authority.

When the Battle Ship lurched, Phil initially dismissed it as a quirk due to the ship being a pieced-together mess. It was the agitated reactions of the other three that ticked him off to the fact that such violent shudders may not be natural, even for this ragged vessel.

"What was that?" More irritated than unnerved, Viz's triumphant expression was marred by a frown as he spun to glare at his lieutenant.

Diz tapped at something on the dashboard, a screen whose glowing letters and numbers were fluctuating wildly. By their gleeful, neon light, the way the alien paled was almost sickening.

"Oh no..." As though in a trance, he repeated his ineffectual ministrations, continuing as he spoke and becoming increasingly frantic, "We've gotten too close to Earth." Somewhere from within the ship, a siren began to wail, a dreadful banshee sound unheard of outside wars and nightmares, "We're entering its gravitational field."

Mild panic called it a day, tagged in blind terror, and left for a farm in the countryside.

"Well get us out!" It was the closest Phil had ever heard Viz come to fright. Contrasting his air of desperation, Diz sounded calm. It was the faint quiver in the background of his words that gave tell to his lack of situational control.

"I can't! The Death Ray has taken most of the power and we were running low as it was. Attempting to power up anything more, say re-entry fields or back-up thrusters, would push the battery into critical condition."

Again, Phil couldn't help the sense of detachment that swept over him, as though he was watching this unfold on television or in the theatre. That this could happen to ordinary, well meaning people was just inconceivable. That things like this could happen to Phil Eggtree was slightly more believable, but still enough to disorientate him to the point that, when he finally spoke up, it took a second for him to recognise his own voice.

"Is there anything you can do?" Diz bit his lip, hand hovering anxiously over the keys.

"We have, estimated, five minutes before our position becomes too unstable to hold and we plummet to earth."

"...Diz that doesn't help." The green-skinned alien snapped out of his trance and directed a disapproving glare at the cabins inhabitants.

"If we reroute all nonessential power to one of those time-stop mines, we may be able to buy ourselves enough time to drain the power from Quiz's vessel to this one. Then we could put up re-entry fields."

"Are you sure that would work?"

"No Viz. But have you got a better idea?" All around them, the struggle between the ship and the surrounding atmosphere was becoming more evident; the metal of the walls was groaning and creaking, shuddering under unseen pressure. Common sense (and lack of a better plan) meant that it took Viz barely a second to reach a decision.

"Quiz get over here and help with this."

Partially ignoring Viz's order, Quiz looked between Phil and the distant orb of Earth. Thought process written starkly across his face, he started when Phil snatched at his wrist, determination gripping him in a sudden, brief bout.

"You don't have to stay with them."

Quiz gave a smile that was as fond as it was bitterly cynical.

"Yeah, yeah I do."

"Why?"

"Well, first off, that escape pod is meant to carry one person only." Quiz began to usher Phil towards the now-familiar escape capsule, "Secondly, Viz and Diz are my _friends_ Phil. You wouldn't leave your friends stuck here, would you?" Phil couldn't argue that point, knowing he hadn't a leg to stand on. Looking somehow younger and more vulnerable than before, Quiz pressed Phil's shoulder, uncomfortably aware of how final the gesture felt, "Go. At some point in the future, we'll be back."

Phil studied the alien's face, each scabrous, dull scale, the slightly uneven nasal slits, the liquid, black eyes. Behind Quiz, he could see the alarms strobing light reflect off Viz's angular glasses, hear Diz calling out a nonsensical jumble of orders and figures with near-military efficiency. Reaching up, Phil squeezed the four fingered hand.

"...I'll count on it, Quiz."

The last thing Phil saw as he was jettisoned from the Transport Vessel was Quiz hurrying over to assist Viz with a nondescript box that he could only assume was to be the craft's salvation. Then everything was lost to fire as he hurtled back to the real world.


	3. Chapter 2: Falling

Phil knew something had changed the second the Vizion craft landed. Perhaps it was a change in the flavour of the air, a hint of smoke like a bonfires shadow, a negligible detail that fell slightly out of place.

Or perhaps it was the fact that birds kept freezing in place in the sky, that the scientific news facilities were having a field day raving about an 'unidentifiable flying object speeding towards earth at an incredible velocity', or that, at roughly ten in the evening, a massive, blazing wreck took the opportunity to ruin the perfect blue of the sky and crash in a nearby wood with all the inherent grace of a drunk passing out on a park bench.

Seven years. Seven years of blissfully monotonous, uninterrupted normalcy. Phil felt a sharp pang of apprehension and anticipation that reminded him keenly of the adrenaline fuelled adventures of his youth. Despite everything, he could do nothing to stop the grin taking over his face as he snatched up his phone and selected a speed dial. Considering the lateness of the hour, it was pleasantly surprising when she picked up on the second ring.

"Smiley? They're back."

Everyone sounds farther away on the phone; Smiley, situated in a university only just out of town, sounded to be more distant than the stars. Phil would always tell himself it was because he missed her, and that it was definitely not because of his beyond-ancient phone and unreliable network.

"Really? Are you sure? No, no; of course you're sure...alright, alright," he could hear her drawing a determined breath. "I'm on my way." He could see her in his minds eye, snatching her keys from the counter near the door of her university suite, throwing her coat on and bolting out in to the night. Half an hours drive to his place, maybe less if traffic was good. Another call to Zack, who lived a few streets away, and one to Phred to let him know that Smiley would pick him up, and Phil felt he could relax. The cavalry was on its way.

He remembered Smiley's convoluted explanation of how time would function—or rather cease to function—on board the ship. Because it was a moving object, orbiting the Earth at a high speed, time would pass more quickly for the people on board. One year on earth could be only an hour, ship-time. Add to that the fact that they were using a device made to halt time, and it could be years before anything happened. Best to leave it for now, she had said, with the strange wisdom of an eleven year old who has quite literally seen the world, we just have to look out for it when it happens.

As it turned out, they didn't have to look particularly hard. The forest that lingered at the edge of the disused football field was, at a charitable description, scraggly, with gnarled branches that twisted and clutched at each other in a vain attempt to keep upright. Barren for as long as Phil could remember, crisp packets became their incongruously vibrant leaves, discarded bottles their fallen fruit, scraps of wet newspaper the dank clumps of moss that clung to the shrivelled trunks. Everyone Phil knew avoided the place as somewhere to be forgotten; it exuded the despair of eras past in the same way a ruin did, the empty shell of something that had been dignified and enjoyed left to rot.

Maybe that was why Phil stood alone now, examining shattered branches and gouged ground. Maybe that was why, despite the immense disturbance the crash landing had caused, no one cared to see. It was a corner of the world everyone else had managed to forget and so no-one cared to see its destruction. In the half-light of a late, summer evening, combed through with flickering ribbons of amber flame, everything took on a harsher guise; it was inordinately difficult to tell what was a warped blade of shrapnel and what was a piece of shattered wood. Phil shifted uncomfortably; anything could be waiting here. Maybe it would be best if he remained until the others arrived...

No. This couldn't wait. After all these years, Phil could recall, clear as day, Viz's obvious, calm satisfaction at the thought of Earth's outright obliteration, Diz's frothing, choking rage and love of random destruction. Even Quiz had attempted the subjugation of in innocuous Elementary school simply to feel important. Of the aliens that had arrived, not one of them could be trusted, not fully, and it would be a serious oversight to let any of them slip the net.

Besides, it wasn't as though Smiley and the others stood a chance of overlooking the crash site; short of a neon sign proclaiming 'over here!' in bold capitals, there wasn't a way to make it more noticeable.

With that fortifying thought, Phil set off, following the path of carnage and hoping to whatever deity willing to listen that, if he died, it was because of world-conquering aliens and not some druggie with a pocket knife.

 **•** **~*{V}*~•**

The ship was on fire.

That was just one of the many things happening that was not part of the plan.

Metal has an irritating tendency to at up and, in a ship whose predominant component is metal, that is something that becomes a noticeable issue rather swiftly. _Particularly_ if the ship in question is hurtling through the atmosphere at an ever-increasing speed. Viz rather felt as though he had been trapped in a furnace created for the sole purpose of scorching his skin off. Give that he, an alien with a high tolerance for heat, was finding the ride uncomfortable, he could hardly bear to think of the conditions endured by his companions. Quiz, who had, admittedly, managed to hold his nerve for a good portion of this barely controlled descent, had clasped tightly about Viz's waist, seemingly desperate to be in firm contact with something solid that didn't threaten to melt his flesh. Three of his hands had bunched the fabric of Viz's shirt to the point where it was tearing at the seams, the fourth diligently pressing the hastily added button on the time-mine made to extend the field, oblivious to the fact that the machine had long since shorted. Viz himself had no way of telling if the circuitry issue had also affected the equipment he was meant to be overseeing; he could hardly see the switches through the smoke and had lost communication with Diz completely. As a result, he resorted to periodically switching the controls in a haphazard attempt at helping.

All about them, the walls of the ship were convulsing, buckling under the strain, splitting wide open and allowing nubilous smoke to pour through in copious amounts. So thick was the smog, that Viz could no longer see Diz, despite the fact that the helm was but a few feet away. The only indication of the other he had was the sporadic coughs and occasional, hoarse fits of cursing as the ship swayed and lurched. Hardly audible over the multitude of other random noises and absent for nearly five minutes now, it was only the fact that they were still airborne—a miracle whose swift and violent end Viz was beginning to anticipate—that kept the leader convinced his helmsman was still standing.

Now, it couldn't be said that this was the party's first crash landing; over the course of piecing together their spacecraft from various, nebulous parts cannibalised from other wrecks, they had suffered through more than their fair share of system failures and impromptu stops. It became a trend, in the end, a final test for each of their ships, whether Diz could force a landing and have it survive in less than three pieces. They had practiced drills and conducted tests, and Viz was uncomfortably aware of the fact that these precautions were the only things keeping them from their untimely demise.

For this was, without a shadow of a doubt, the roughest landing any of them had experienced. Caught woefully off guard, they had been left with only the barest of security measures and scraped a handful of improvised minutes to prepare. Hardly helping matters was the fact that this particular vessel, designed for the sole purpose of utilising the freeze ray, was not built for something as stressful as breaching an atmospheric boundary, much less the trauma of re-entry itself. Zone 5.1 had controlled the initial, unplanned trip to earth, and Diz had managed to put up the protective shielding on the way back into space; both attempts had sustained damage and Viz wondered, watching yet another unidentified fragment of the ship fly past his face, if that would cost them now.

Wires cackled with electricity's mocking laughter; vents bellowed steam; walls, floors, and ceiling grated and screamed in a symphony of agony; the red alert wailed; glass shattered; the battery, somehow audible from its position elsewhere in the ship, was emitting an increasingly worrying hum, threatening to build to a crescendo and vaporise them all; if chaos took on the form of sheer noise, with the intention of beating all order into helpless submission, Viz was almost certain that this would be at least an element of how it sounded. In the half seconds that passed between hearing what sounded to be a faint echo of a voice, and the flurry that succeeded it, he wondered whether this nightmare was to drag out for eternity, twisted punishment of some form. By the time whatever he had heard registered—regrettably they had been rather important faint words—he had time for little other than folding his head to his chest, curling an arm over his eyes, and praying that whatever happened next did so quickly.

 _"Brace for landing!"_

Given an eternity to prepare for impact, they would have still been jarred by that rending collision. Flung around like rag dolls, the only surprise was that all three figures remained alive within the confines of the ship. Everything else—broken bones, deep wounds, scalds, tissue damage—could have been predicted by anyone with a modicum of sense.

The ship rocked in its crater for a second before settling, not moving because the molten underbelly had found any give in the earth below, but because supports had worn thin enough to allow a generous amount of motion. Witnessing it, any sensible viewer would have fled for the hills. Mind you, _most_ people watching the landing would have left by that point, most people having a fairly high regard for personal safety.

Coughing, Viz groped blindly with two of his arms, stolidly ignoring the agonising shift of bones shifting in his shoulder. His searching hand met a spindly limb, it's Vizion jacket crisp and burnt. With difficulty, he pulled Diz towards him, relieved to find that he wasn't trapped under heavy debris. Reassured that he knew where both of his crew mates were, Viz began to probe the panels next to him. One, he was certain, would lead to the false ventilation duct that they had planned to utilise as an escape route. Any urgency in his actions was marred by the fact that he was dizzy from smoke inhalation and far too disorientated to be efficient. In many ways, it was astounding that he had the presence of mind to look for an exit at all; certainly, it was more than the others were capable of. Quiz was shuddering, unconscious, but protected from the worst of the fire by virtue of the fact that he was mostly covered by Viz. Diz was still, as though already dead, but that wasn't something that registered to Viz's half-fainted mind. Preoccupied as he was by his fruitless hunt for the exit, he didn't notice the ominous creaking emanating from the ceiling supports until the apparatus collapsed, splitting the ship open to the air and sending a plume of smoke spiralling laughingly into the blue of the night.

 **•~*{V}*~•**

Well...he'd found the ship. Or rather what was left of it.

Which wasn't much, in the general scheme of things.

Given that the fire was the only source of light in, the newly made clearing had been given the bizarre effect of a silhouette, the surrounding trees simple black outlines nestled about a picture drawn in reds and golds. Phil's shadow stretched out behind him, lengthening, shortening, then falling under his feet altogether, as though darkness wished to keep him close.

The ship had crumpled in on itself, like a tin can, or a lawn chair, or some similar item of little use or consequence. Unlike these items, the Vizion battle ship didn't just become an unsightly blemish; it seeped danger, leaking blazing tongues of fuel to lap at nearby trees, trees whose dead wood was only too happy to accept its sudden bounty. Somewhere towards what had once been the spaceships nose, the death ray was whining in confusion, concertinaed upon itself in an attractive mess of lethal frost and glowing circuitry. For a good few seconds, it was all Phil could do to stand in awe of the utter carnage. Everything about the mutilated vessel seemed to have raised its voice in protest against the rough treatment it had received. Next to it, the tentative crunch of trainers on dirt seemed frail.

"So," Phil's voice, unnaturally human amongst the slew of random, shorted electronics, "this is how you choose to make an entrance, huh? Preferred the lava myself; surprisingly less traumatic."

There was no response. Phil cocked his head to one side, unwilling to explore the wreck himself.

"Not talking to me? Rude. Nothing, not a word for seven years, and you think you can just turn up and we'll not mind? Just bad manners, guys. I'm not big on etiquette, but still..."

Silence. Even the crackle of fire seemed to try and edge away from this awkward attempt at a one-sided conversation.

"You've kinda ruined the park, y'know. I mean, no one uses this place anyway, but I guarantee it'll piss someone off. They'll put it in a local newspaper, call a meeting to discuss it; we'll have to turn it into a duck pond or something." Phil considered it for a second, "hey, that's not a bad idea..."

Footsteps sounded behind him, uneven, some hurried, others leisurely. Phil didn't bother turning to greet his friends; the scene before him wasn't one that required an introduction of explanation.

"Wow...just...just wow. How the hell did they manage this?" Far from disturbed, Phred sounded mildly impressed. Smirking, Phil shrugged, feeling tension slip silently from the air.

"Determination to fail?"

"They must have been going for some kind of record." Zack scuffed his shoe over a disembowelled piece of machinery, it's silver entails glistening. "Look at this. Like...did anything survive the crash? They even totalled the field."

Fiddling nervously with her hair, a habit she had picked up shortly after growing all those years ago, Smiley piped up, hesitantly edging in to the field of light. As usual, she was the only one focused on the task at hand.

"Do you think they're alright?"

"Real question Smiley; do we care?"

She stood aghast for a few seconds before rallying her appalled response; noticeably, she neither confirmed nor denied her stance on the matter

"Zack!" The young man gave a derisive snort, flames jetting from the crown of his head and dancing like an emperors wreath.

"Oh come on! Don't tell me you didn't consider not showing. These assholes ruined our childhoods!" Phil raised an eyebrow at the exaggeration; sure, the alien's had made things weirder, but they had been resilient children. They had come back alright. If not for reminders like Smiley's hair, the important difference of Zack _boiling_ the water fountain instead of freezing it, and Phred's sudden desire to accomplish more (i.e. Tie _both_ his shoelaces.) Phil would have been tempted to dismiss the whole thing as a bizarre dream.

To say it was childhood ruining was excessive, to say the least.

"That's...a little dramatic."

Zack threw his finger in the air in a declamatory gesture that was almost violent in its indignant enthusiasm.

"True!"

Phil snorted. Phred, however, took a contemplative standpoint that was as rare as it was unhelpful.

"He's got a point...what if they want carry on with their whole 'destroy the world' scheme. I don't really want to run round playing superman, saving the earth and all that. Sounds stressful and I'm not in a hurry to go grey."

"They don't deserve to burn alive!"

"Don't they?" Zack sounded both dubious and hopeful. Smiley's voice was hard.

"No, Zack. No one deserves that."

Chastised, Zack sighed and shrugged his shoulders in defeat. Unconvinced, Phred looked to the leader.

"Phil?"

Still avoiding his friends eyes, Phil was silent for the longest time. Seven years was a long time to reflect, and with all the doubt and distrust he had harboured stacked against him, continuing in the intended vein was harder than he had anticipated. After all, it was always easy to say you'll do something if you aren't being confronted with the issue; that's how politicians make a living.

It would be so easy to leave them there, put the mistakes of the past to rest.

Almost too easy.

In the end, still stolidly facing the flames, Phil settled on a noncommittal response.

"Whatever we do, we need to hurry up. Not everyone's gonna be put off by the general air of misery here." As though waiting for its cue, a siren started up somewhere in the distance. A fire engine, perhaps. Time was running out.

Nobody moved.

Smiley quavered, then bit her lip, squared her shoulders, and steeled herself in a way that seemed almost a threat. Rigid with iron determination and backlit by flames, it was the most impressive Phil had seen anyone look in faded pyjama bottoms and an old woollen jumper emblazoned with greying pink kittens. Without a word of explanation she marched towards the wreckage. It took barely a second for the others to follow suit.

Faltering when they reached the breached hull, the group became more cautious. The heat here was like a blow, hung with a heady, chemical scent that threatened poisoning. Even the air seemed malicious, shot through with energy and drier than dust as it bit and scratched at exposed hands and faces. Though not primed for another rupture, the ship creaked dangerously, teasingly, happy to be a reminder of the fragile mortality of everyone inside. Everything was shrouded in a chokingly dense smog that poured from every possible surface and outlet. Mercifully, from what Phil could tell, the lava pit was damaged but closed. How long that would remain so, however...

The distant sirens were growing louder.

Phred nudged his side—everyone had taken an unspoken oath not to speak in the spacecraft—and Phil followed the direction of his gaze. Conveniently close, there was a section of collapsed roofing, still smoking from where the suffocation of the collapse had quashed the fire. Protruding from under that, and at an angle Phil would rather forget existed, was a blue skinned arm.

 _'Well Quiz, you kept your promise.'_

Oblivious to the fire climbing his shirt—that fire being somewhat cooler than the man himself—Zack dragged the support beam to one side, indelicate and complaining throughout. With considerably more care, the other three began dragging the exposed figures from the wreck, stumbling over extra limbs in the process. Once outside, it was a case of take a body and run to the alley mouth at the foot of the park, where the endless labyrinth of the suburbs began. Phil was deliberately operating on automatic, leery of looking to closely at anything. Whatever he was carrying seemed determined to snag on every corpse of every bush and every shrub. Roots reached up from the ground with the sole intention of catching at his feet. Next to him, he could hear Phred's relentless, whispered swearing. When they reached the alley entrance, engulfed by the absolute darkness offered by the shadows of rundown houses, Phred dropped his share of the burden without ceremony and doubled back to help the others. Phil sheltered behind a dumpster that was clustered with enough bins to fill a house, listening intently for any signal that they had been followed.

Zack and Phred appeared, Zack still highlighted by the flames from his head.

Smiley straggled in a few seconds later, tripping about the myriad of bins in a strange dance as she tried to avoid the alien limbs dangling before her.

Crouched amongst the refuse, they watched as cars flashed past; police, fire department, and a bevy of unidentifiable black vehicles. Sound followed the excitement and the four were swiftly left to the void of their own thoughts.

Feeling around, Phil felt unduly thankful for the near absolute darkness; whatever limb he was holding felt broken, the fabric of the shirt wet. The alien, whichever one it was, was deadweight in his grasp. Strangely, he was reminded of the immobile weight of his school bag, a remnant of events from a lifetime ago. Such was the power of association, he forgot the situation at hand, transported more thoroughly in time than any machine could manage; to a place of peeling wallpaper, an overpoweringly strong scent of stale coffee, and an underlying seam of raw, untapped disappointment that life waited to take advantage of. The ringing of a school bell was all he could hear, the end of another day...

A car swished past, speeding wheels spinning arcs of filth ridden water, and the illusion was broken. They were stuck in a reeking, piss-soaked alley, huddled like disobedient children, refuse less 'littered about' more 'pressed to form a viable floor'. The alien in Phil's grip shifted, a ragged gasp tearing from its chest, and Phil felt the sharp edge of its glasses dig in to his arm. Viz; he was almost tempted to drop him in the muck.

But the others were looking at him, expectant, troops before a leader who would take them in to battle. Smiley had Diz pulled half over her shoulder in a surprisingly genuine attempt at supporting a figure rather taller than herself. Zack and Phred bore Quiz between them, one apathetic, the other frowning in mild consternation. All of them seemed wide-eyed and blank, nervous without being jittery, determined without much motivation. Phil sighed heavily, well aware of what was expected of him and half-glad he had three scapegoats. Alone, he knew none of them would have bothered.

"Come on. We all know the plan. Let's get outta here before those science nuts figure out we've nicked their aliens and decide to tag along."

With that, and four identical, cynical smiles, they vanished into the maze of suburban alleyways, dragging their kidnappers behind them. The town awoke that morning to a ruined field, confused scientists, and black blood dotted on the pavement. In all the world, only six people knew what to make of it all. In a way, that was already too many for peace.


	4. Chapter 3: Fractures

The plan was going to fail.

Not only that, but the plan was going to fail embarrassingly. Possibly fatally. It was the sort of plan, Phil realised, that should only have been pulled off the drawing board to be laughed at and forgotten, not put in to any form of action.

These revelations came a shade too late; the doorbell had been rung, footsteps sounded from inside, the handle was turning.

Smiley's mother opened the door. Her daughter stood on the step, bold as tarnished brass, and tried to remember her practiced lines.

As the mind will always manage in a delicate situation, hers drew a blank. Not wanting to be left silent, she blurted out an uncomfortably loud 'HELLO' that echoed it's false brightness several times before taking its leave and dissipating. Mrs Sundae blinked in the very deliberate manner of someone who is wondering, in the politest possible fashion, what the hell is going on.

"H-hello sweetie." She leaned out slightly, casting an appraising eye over her daughters friends and the ragged strangers they were carrying. "Smiley darling, you know I'm always happy to see you but...what is this?"

The older woman sounded patently baffled and, had he not been as tired and fed up as he was, Phil might have felt sorry for her. As it was, he was merely exasperated by another delay; Viz was heavier than his build would suggest and personal loathing wasn't lightening that fact any. As surreptitiously as he could manage, standing, as he was, in the spill of light from the open door, Phil lowered (read: carefully dropped) Viz on the ground. The alien hit the top step with a toneless thud but remained completely catatonic. Phil whistled his innocence.

Meanwhile, Smiley, caught like a deer in the headlights of a freight train, had decided that, of all the possible ways to explain the situation to her mother, the best course of action was to avoid it all together. With that incredibly illogical thought bouncing in her frazzled brain and flare born in the heat of the moment, Smiley gave her perplexed mother the widest smile she could manage. It looked a little psychotic.

"Hi mum!"

"Hello Smiley."

"Lovely night isn't it?" Even before the crash, the night had been average at best. Now, the only thing remarkable about it was its sudden ugliness. The fumes of the crashed spaceship had painted the attractive navy of the sky with liberal streaks of grey and black which less swirled, as smoke was expected to do, and more splattered like ink. In layman's terms, it was about as attractive as a biro moustache scribbled on the Mona Lisa.

Now Smiley's mother was not a foolish woman. A small, bird-like figure—dexterous and quick—with grey hairs scattered at her temples and pinched marks on the bridge of her nose, she was the observer of many years and wiser than all of them. She certainly knew well enough to know when her daughter was attempting to hide something—not that Smiley was making that deduction particularly hard. With a deceptively sweet voice, she cut easily to the heart of the matter, neat as a surgeon with a scalpel.

"Yes dear, very nice. Who are your friends?"

Smiley blanched.

"You've met them mum. Phil, Phred, and Zach, same as last time."

Her mothers smile was dry and cold.

"Your other friends, Smiley."

"They're...friends."

Mrs Sundae widened her eyes in comic surprise. Phil silently hoped she was a better doctor than she was an actor.

"Oh, I've never seen them."

"...they're from...out of town," Smiley gave a cheerful laugh that bordered on hysterical. "We met quite a while ago, you

see..."

'When we were in Elementary, actually. They kidnapped us to see if Earth was worth obliterating. I thought we killed one of them. They probably hate us. Good times...'

Mrs Sundae nodded dubiously, squinting at each of them in turn with the flinty eyes of someone who is well aware of your lies and wondering about the optimum time to expose you. Seeing this, like a cavalry knight of old, Smiley charged bravely into the breach.

"So...here's the thing; they got a little...beat up—totally nothing weird! Like, it was a completely normal...mugging, yeah. But...we were kinda hoping they could...stay...for the night..." Starting strongly, with boldness only true improvisation could lend, she trailed off, miserably aware how ridiculous she sounded. Looking back, she saw her defeat mirrored in the faces of friends. Well, Phil and Phred looked fairly dispirited—Zach was nudging Viz with his shoe, seemingly oblivious to the conversation.

Squinting slightly to fully appreciate the gallery of weary, worried faces presented to her, Mrs Sundae began a careful process of consideration. First and foremost was the issue of the strangers; half-dead in appearance, they would hardly be in any condition to harm her. Having said that—time to address the elephant in the room—there was obviously something off about them; the fact that some had four arms, for instance, or their unnatural colouring. It didn't take an genius to connect the numbered dots and, as I hastened to stress before, Mrs Sundae was far from being a fool. Out of town, indeed. Given to her by any other, she would have dismissed the situation with a blithe flick of her head; if the government wanted to get involved, that was as good a cue as any to bow out.

But this was her daughter asking. Smiley, who was as open and trusting a person as you could ever hope to meet, someone she respected and loved to the hilt. If there were anyone in the world that that woman would risk it all for, it was her timid, little daughter. Mothers really are exceptionally good at things like that; it's a skill they inherit, along with the ability to make food appear from nowhere, and the knowledge of how to correctly fold shirts.

"Smiley, are you in trouble?"

The girl looked up, radiating bone-deep tiredness like a fire throws out light. She clearly had neither the will nor the energy to conjure more weak lies.

"Sort of...it's hard to explain, mum."

Coming to her inevitable decision more swiftly than she would have liked, Mrs Sundae stepped out of the doorway, opening up her home.

"I need to know who they are,"

As a group, they seemed to return to life, breathing a sigh of relief. It was cut short.

"And I need to know why they're here." Somehow, without any actual emphasis, the word 'here' had stretched to encompass both the general suburb and the wider world beyond.

"...yes mum. I'll explain. Everything."

With the feeling they they had been forced to commit to some inexplicable, invisible contract, the group dragged into the house.

Now, the idea to take the aliens to Smiley's was not some simple whim. In her youth, the woman had been an army doctor who worked in the field hospitals, and Phil was counting on the fact that her medical knowledge would help; he could be dying and all he'd be able to do is stick a plaster on it and take an aspirin, so she'd be better than that at least. It was also somewhere out of the way, a nondescript neighbourhood of a reasonably respectable community where the most interesting thing that happened, on a general basis, was a fight between tomcats, or the bin-man tripping over his trade. All in all, it was the last place you would expect to find alien terrorists. Or so Phil hoped.

Entering the living room, Phil was struck by the supreme normalcy of the place. Outside, there was a wrecked, alien ship and federal scientists running amok. In here there was a fake Persian rug, beige walls, and a multifaceted lamp with one dead bulb. The contrast was broken the second the others followed through the door. Gently, Smiley tried to lie Diz on the sofa. The alien seemed to seize up, hissing in pain, still refusing to wake. Smiley flinched guiltily and stepped away as if burned.

Phil shrugged Viz to the side once more, lying him untidily across his lieutenant. Quiz completed the awkward lattice of unconscious bodies, and the four stood grimly in the cheerfully lit living room, splattered with greyish fluid and reeking of smoke, chemicals, and the thick mulch that gathered in the corners of the alleyways.

Smiley's mother bustled in after them, her face still sternly set, cast an appraising glance over the room and somehow seemed to address everyone at once.

"Names. I need their names." Phil almost sighed in relief. That question, at least, was easy to answer; it was the whys and the how's and the where-for-afters that he was hoping to avoid. As the leader, it was he who was silently nominated to respond. He pointed at each as he gave a concise, if woefully limited and severely downplayed, summary:

"The red one's called Viz; he's kind of the leader. That one's Diz, he's—" Zach helpfully cut in.

"A lying, treacherous arsehole." Phil waved a hand, sweeping the statements to one side but not bothering to deny it.

"He's the second in command. Both of them might be, um...off, if—when—they wake up. Just...just call me; I'll handle them."

Raising an eyebrow, Mrs Sundae chose not to comment, unsure whether to point out that none of the aliens would be up for much if they did happen to wake, or whether to simply be insulted that Phil didn't believe she could look after herself. In the end she settled with a piercing look that made everybody in a hundred meter vicinity shuffle with shame.

"...right." She jabbed a sharp finger at the last, unconscious lump. "And that is?"

"Quiz. We like Quiz." Thankfully, she seemed to accept that as fact so Phil didn't bother to elaborate. Not that he could have; besides irritating his co-workers, Phil wasn't entirely sure what Quiz actually did.

Then, with the manner of someone chivvying their brood, she declined all offers of help and chased them off to bed. In all honesty, it was a little humiliating.

And that's how Phil Eggtree and his assorted cronies ended up sat on a half inflated air-mattress in his girlfriends house at one o'clock in the morning discussing possible ways for aliens to conquer the world and impossible ways to retaliate. Each suggestion of either kind was more ridiculous than the last, and the discussion swiftly grew heated, fast paced and overlapping as they struggled to contemplate what their actions had brought about.

"So what do we do with them?"

"Do? We can't do anything. You think someone like Viz is gonna stop if you ask him pretty please? No; all we've done here is brought dangerous madmen in to Smiley's home."

Phil threw his hands into the air in a surprising show of anger.

"Zach that's not helping!"

"Sorry for being honest."

Phred waved a grim hand. "He's got a point. I mean, even Quiz took some convincing to give Vizion up. Viz and Diz actually want to continue the project. What can we do about that?"

Too tired to think of an in depth solution, and fed up with bickering, Phil sighed and offered a weak platitude.

"We'll work something out."

Ever the antagonist, Zach gave a pessimistic snort.

"Too late, they're here now. If we wake up and everyone on the block's dead, well, we know who to blame."

Looking from person to person, lips trembling slightly, Smiley, silent through all of this, visibly swallowed before reaching under her bed with a shaking hand. There was an air, about her now, of tearful determination, as though she were preparing to do something awful but utterly necessary. Phil glanced over her shoulder, eyes flying wide. Phred leapt back as though electrocuted, Zack uttered a hushed curse, both prayer and condemnation.

Clutched tightly in her hand was a well-worn revolver, wood inlaid grip smooth and polished, barrel greased and glimmering. In the small apertures of that barrel, Phil could see the confident gleam of six, silver bullets. All at once the room felt too hot, too cold, too large, and suffocatingly cramped; it was as though the massive contradiction of someone as mild as Smiley owning a weapon was attempting to cram itself into that one space.

"Holy sh—Smiles, w-why...why've you got a gun." Her lips wobbled, but her voice was unwaveringly firm and she was stone-faced as she turned to look each of them in the eye.

"In case they make trouble," she said softly, as they looked blankly at the thing cradled in her lap, "I don't want anyone to get hurt this time around." She gave the gun a fragile smile, broken glass beads instead of teeth. "It was dad's really. He kept it in a box under the stairs, mum thinks I don't know. It's for burglars, really..." She trailed off, the cold metal absorbing her words and rendering them superfluous. In dull lead and heavy, iron noise, it painted a clearer picture than a thousand books could ever hope to manage; Zach noticed the splash of darkness staining the grip, swallowed, and declined to mention it.

Tension settled in a heavy blanket, stubbornly disregarding all attempts made to cast it aside. Finally Phil spoke:

"Look...we can't do this if we just sit and argue. There no point in that. We are adults, goddammit, not stupid school children bickering over who's on whose baseball team. We are not going to panic, or—or flip out. We beat these guys before; doing it again will be easy." His voice, though not resonant with certainly, was firm enough to convey some confidence in his words. Their history with the aliens stood behind him like a shadow, not reassuring but a solid reminder that not everything was yet lost.

"Yeah," Zach nodded, sarcasm muted if not gone entirely. "These punks couldn't even touch us in first year. I'd like to see 'em try now."

Silently, Phred lay back on the borrowed mattress. His lack of comment was as much a confirmation that he believed those words as they would receive. Despite all this, it was with no small amount of reluctance that Smiley retired the gun to its home beneath the bed. As he lay down, Phil imagined that he could feel the cold eye of the muzzle trained on them, watching as they slept. Phred's muffled voice spoke up in the dark, apprehension burnt in black.

"Easy, huh?"

The night passed in marked silence. Nobody got much sleep.

•~*{0}*~•

Perhaps it was a mercy that they remained unconscious. Difficult as it made her own task, maybe it was for the best that none of her impromptu patients so much as stirred as she attempted to bind, and suture, and set.

Going over the list of prioritised injuries in her head, Sundae drew a soft breath and tried to still the quiver in her fingers, silently willing them to work as steadily as they had once managed so effortlessly. Already, her hands were coated in a fine film of translucent black that she instinctively knew to be blood; slightly thicker than a humans, it gave off a strong scent of rust and river-water that caught cloyingly in her airways and splintered her sinuses. It was cold, as though it came from something already dead, and that thought alone was enough to reignite the arthritically nervous twitch of her fingers.

Focus. Calm down.

There was once a time when she could do this without thought, she remembered. Years before, she had strode about a dilapidated camp, plucked bullets from bodies, flooded veins with morphine, and flirted shamelessly as she stitched wounds. Strange, isn't it, how much the years can take away.

Forcefully abandoning her caution, hoping to discard nerves with it, Sundae began to carefully assess the head wound before her. Her clinical demeanour fell back in place, as though it had never left, a worn pair of boots, broken in and intimately familiar. Deep abrasions, bad bruising, possibly cracked skull; she wound bandages tightly about the figures head, building them up in layers until they appeared almost amusingly turban-like. Not remembering names—not having believed them to be real names in the first place—she silently identified the figure as 'two arms'. Both had been torn roughly from their sockets; damaged ligaments, torn muscles, and burnt skin ringing each palm. The left elbow was probably broken, the right wrist badly sprained, both shoulders sporting heavy tissue damage. A long gash was drawn across his stomach. Small pieces of glass clinked as she pulled them from his chest. Even after binding the wounds best she could, the cuts leaked blood, the burns flaked, and the arms bent antagonistically against their splints. The alien lolled lifelessly in her grip; several times she had to check if her was still breathing.

Shuddering slightly, the whole process thus far having felt incredibly unnatural, Sundae moved to the next, one she had mockingly labelled 'glasses'. The out of place moniker did nothing to alleviate the cool dread she felt as she looked down at the blank, dead visage. Angular glasses covered most of his upper face, cracked and damaged, but intact enough for her to see that, regardless of splintering, their shape had always been sharp. They made for a cruel pair of glaring eyes as she began to assess his condition.

Cracked ribs, lower left arm fractured, muscle in the upper left shoulder damaged, broken right leg, and multiple, slashed wounds to the upper body. Blood was dribbling from beneath those staring glasses. Any attempt to remove them was met with stiff resistance until she found the catch that latched them onto the side of the aliens face. Falling away easily, they left one vacant, black eye, an empty socket crammed with varied pieces of unidentifiable tech, and a long, trailing wire. Sundae set the apparatus gently to one side and carefully wiped the blood pouring from a cut just below the hollow eye. The rest was simple and conducted in determined apathy. Like before, her patient refused to stir and she was bizarrely grateful for that.

It was the final one that made her pause slightly. Sundae remembered his name; 'Quiz. We like Quiz.'. The thought kept her occupied as she worked, idle contemplation aiding her clinical observation.

Broken lower left wrist, broken fingers on every hand. Fractured collarbone. Burns covering left side.

What was to be considered different about this one? From her own perspective, Sundae would have gladly shied away from them all. Something about them, the reptilian cool of their skin, their delicate, slender limbs, and liquid black eyes, made some deep, animalistic instinct buried within her core recoil. To her, each of the strangers were smoke on the wind; danger. A disaster waiting to be set in motion.

With a small flourish of begrudging triumph, Sundae tied the last bandage tight. Her medical kit shut with a self-contained click, ready to return to the dusty confines of the lower shelf. Outside, faintly, she could still hear the warbling drift of sirens and speeding cars. From the sound of it, there were even more now than the last time she bothered to listen, like carrion birds flocking to a corpse.

Silently, Sundae crossed over to the kitchenette's window, drew the blind and prayed that her daughter knew what she was doing. One too many times, she had seen great things ruined by people with the best of intentions.

That was where she remained for the next few hours, until the sun's glow began to edge its way to the horizon; stood, once again, amongst the bodies of strangers, the scent of damning copper heavy in her nostrils and her mind thick with the portent sound of war.


	5. Chapter 4: Morning

It is a fundamental fact, throughout all of time and space, that having a meal in your girlfriends house while her mother glares disapprovingly at you from across the kitchen table, is one of the most gut-wrenchingly awful experiences a person can suffer through.

What is less commonly acknowledged is that this dire strait can, in fact, be made worse; just add the fact that you brought three injured aliens to her house, unexplained and unannounced, in the dead of night, and have yet to justify that decision. Phil was half-sure that Mrs Sundae was attempting to melt something with the intensity of her gaze, and not quite as sure that she wouldn't succeed.

Ironically, he actually felt more threatened by her than he did by the aliens themselves. Under the circumstances, it was a reasonable reaction—the aliens might have been defeated by wet paper; Mrs Sundae was determinedly attempting the little known technique of Murder by Malicious Eye Contact. Dumping an unreasonable amount of sugar into his unpleasantly cool coffee, he awkwardly turned his back on the older woman—an evasive action he was not proud of—and surveyed the dingy kitchen. Just about everything in it made for a sorry sight, not the least the world conquerors of seven years ago.

Having said that though, what with their persistent silence, Phil couldn't have said certainly whether the strangers in the kitchen were the aliens; wrapped from head to foot in bandages and curled limply in the corners, they could easily have been anything from people to yesterday's dirty washing. Only the vivid colours of their skin defined them as something extraterrestrial, only the slightest, involuntary movements identifying them among the living. Without that definition, they were old socks and nothing more. Barely visible beneath thick bands of sterile white, the navy-grey of their Vizion uniforms was ragged, singed in places, torn roughly in others. With nothing else to dress them in, it had been decided as best to leave them like that. Compounding the image of general desolation they presented, the aliens exuded a general air of exhausted misery that Phil was certain was not warranted this early in the day, regardless of how many failed landings you had recently been involved in.

Even without having been sedated, they had been firmly unconscious for all of the night and most of the following day. Apologetically, Smiley had returned to her campus to complete work—only departing after a strict lecture on the secrecy of the weapon concealed beneath her bed. Phil had spent most of the morning trying to forget it existed, so so far that secret was fairly well kept. Less concerned with such niceties as reasons, Zach had wandered off, and Phed had left for 'work'. Phil could see them both hanging about the lamppost outside, Walkman in hand, an earbud each, a dark coil of smoke trailing lazily from Zach's crown. Tempting as it was to join them, Phil was reluctantly coerced into remaining behind by scraps of honour he didn't know he had.

So that left three: an increasingly irate Mrs Sundae, the great Eggtree himself, and Viz, who had come to consciousness a few hours prior and was sorely regretting that decision.

Staring, no matter the situation, is rude, invasive, and, more often than not, a direct challenge. With this in mind, Phil made it as obvious as possible as he stubbornly watched Viz attempt to reorient the fingers of one of his hands. As good a job as Phil was doing, Viz was, apparently, equably skilled at keeping Phil in his not inconsiderable blind spot, and Phil was beginning to get the feeling that his endeavour could drag out for some time. To keep distract himself, he found himself carefully studying the alien.

Viz, he decided, looked faintly bizarre without his glasses—and considering how ridiculous those glasses were, that was saying something. One eye was rather like Quiz's, round and lashless, disconcertingly like a massive black olive (a comparison Phred had mention to Diz a lifetime ago in return for a rather odd look). The other socket was eyeless, trading nature for coils of wire and computer chips, bordered by a frill of scaled tissue that was a kaleidoscope of different reds, hideously at odds with the block crimson that was the rest of his face. The wide split of his mouth was too uneven a rictus to look normal in any capacity, throwing everything into a faintly disturbing unbalance, stitches messy and genuine as opposed to Quiz's neat fakes. Phil wondered about that, sometimes...

"Is there something you want, human?"

Viz's thin resolve had snapped; he had twisted to face Phil, scowl on his face.

 _Took him long enough._

"Ok, first off, it's Phil. Phil Eggtree, if I'm feeling pedantic, and I am. It'll get real confusing real quick if you try and call everyone 'human' or 'earthling' or some other weird, slightly derogatory name." Viz curled his gash of a mouth in displeasure, but said nothing. "Secondly, yeah, actually. I've got a question for you." Seven years, he'd had one question burning on his lips, now leaving with the sinking suspicion he wouldn't be answered. "Why earth? Of all the places to destroy, why here? Why because of me? I was a kid! I didn't know any better. Escaping school was just, kind of, a thing. No big deal. Of all the planets, in all the universe, with all the reasons in the world, why did you come here?"

Pursing his lips, Viz considered for a second, eyes darting involuntarily to his crew mates. Behind him, Phil could hear Mrs Sundae shift, her surprise and horror at this fresh piece of information evident in the tinny scrape of her chair against the linoleum tiles. Belatedly, he realise that this was probably not the best piece of information to use as the aliens introduction; call him paranoid, but he wouldn't trust strangers that had reportedly attempted planeticide either.

Deliberately, Viz leaned back against the low-set cupboard, wincing at the movement. His speech was choppily inter sped with coughs and sharp gulps of breath, somehow no less menacing than before.

"I'm not going to t-tell you that Eggtree. You know as much as you need to about our plans. Too much, in fact. The less...you are aware of the better a-as far as I'm...concerned."

Shrugging, but hardly put off, Phil adopted a nonchalant air designed to aggravate. The question he'd wanted answered since childhood could wait a little longer...he wasn't going to beg.

"I'll ask Diz. Or Quiz." Viz barked a hoarse laugh, regretted it, and wrapped a careful arm about his side.

"As...as if they'd tell you! Quiz doesn't even...know the whole story." Phil made an unpleasant mental note, folded it neatly away, and decided to change the subject.

"You can't stay here forever."

If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that. Though not crawling with Government cranks, there were enough to be a notable hazard. Enough that Phil knew, if they ever wanted peace and quiet again, the aliens would have to be put out of sight fairly soon. Scoffing slightly, Viz shut his one eye in boredom and turned his head away in a smoothly arrogant gesture.

"I assure you, I...I have no intention to."

That was good, at least—they wouldn't have to be persuaded to move along. The Vizion matter was something else entirely, but it could be addressed later. Preferably with someone who wasn't its grand architect. Silence lapsed for a moment as the two studied each other. Recalling something else, Phil broke it.

"If you're aliens, how comes you all speak English."

Viz made as if to answer; a dazed voice from the corner beat him to it.

"That's the funny thing about...about languages; everybody seems to t-think that their...their culture is the first to come up with something...when really there's o-only so many ways to...to string sounds along to m-make reasonable words. English isn't a common language, but there are plenty of planets...that borrow it."

Diz. Still slumped in one of the corners, he had managed to lift his head to watch the other inhabitants of the room with strange, smudged eyes, bandage slipped over one, a mirror image of Viz. He seemed oddly lucid for someone with as severe a head wound as he'd sustained, but Phil suspected it wouldn't last. At odds with the pain evident on his face, his tone was once more eerily calm, apparently unruffled. Phil shuddered as he contemplated how long the alien had been awake, listening in, finding that putting his fears into words didn't alleviate them any.

"How long have you been awake?"

"Oh, a while...a while." His voice was thick, like a bitten tongue and retained the melting bewilderment of someone still half asleep. Sniffing in what sounded like relieved disdain, Viz prodded at Diz with his foot.

"So you didn't loose an arm...this time. _Congratulations_." Sarcasm dripped liberally from his words. Phil frowned, half-tempted to intervene, more concerned with seeing if Quiz was also awake and listening; he was in need of half-decent company, offence fully intended. Diz's vacant gaze sharpened considerably beneath the multitude of bandages, eyes focusing keenly on a spot slightly to the left of Viz.

"Perhaps, Diz, if...you would be so k-kind, you could explain what you meant by _'I am a c-cult leader_ '. After all, Vizion belongs to me, and me alone, so it...would be _fascinating_ to know what other enterprise you had...i-invested in enough to become the leader."

When he responded, a great deal of the mistiness had seeped from Diz's voice. It was cold, clean cut like something steel, clear, unlike Viz's faintly guttural snap.

"You were not aboard ship. As...as such, I was the highest c-commanding officer. I was leader of Vizion."

By the expression on his face, Phil was honestly surprised when Viz didn't go the full, movie-villain-mile and cackle at his lieutenant's foolishness. Spreading his single, functioning arm in a mocking declamation, he sneered openly at Diz.

"The great Diz, leader of V-Vizion at the time when...all it consisted of...was a useless nobody. Do not try to make an...an enemy of me now, Diz. We both know you're not r-really that stupid. And don't call Project Vizion a cult; I won't have you...demean us like that."

Snarling with rage, Diz made as if to stand, barely moving a centimetre before falling back with a soft, malleable noise of pain, clutching convulsively at his side where one of his lower arms should have been. Any concern that appeared on Viz's face was probably an illusion, and the leader turned aloofly away without comment. Their fight hung in the air, not over, nor dissipated in any sense. Phil had the disconcerting suspicion that it would strike vengefully when it's combatants had recovered, and wondered if he really wanted to witness that spectacle. Deciding not to answer his internal monologue, he quietly slid from his barstool and selected option two; visit Quiz.

Skirting about the absurdly long alien legs sprawling over the floor, Phil picked his way over to Quiz. The blue alien had remained a silent lump until this point; at the sound of close footsteps, he jumped, eyes flying open in shock. Phil gave an involuntary snort of laughter at the failed espionage, wincing in sympathy when Quiz yelped. Diz glanced over, frowning faintly at Quiz before returning to his vicious snarling match. Hardly sparing any of them a glance, Viz tapped a finger against his chin in exaggerated thought.

"We will need s-some form of transmitter to...to contact the mothership." He drawled, acting as though he was not, currently, the most universally hated person in the room. For a second, the statement lay flat, a dropped ball rolling to the desolate corners of the court.

Helpfully, Quiz spoke up, shot down in flames the next second.

"Can't...can't you use a remote."

"It's broken, clod."

Quiz frowned and touched something in one of his pockets before deliberately smoothing the expression. Anyone looking his way would have seen through the poker face. Fortunately for Quiz, the other two were embroiled in their renewed argument. Apparently unable to hold a truce longer than a minute, their latest disagreement was about contacting the ship. Phil had a lurking premonition that this snide sniping was not uncommon; it was simply the directed malice that was new.

"Diz...seeing as this is your fault, I s-suggest you find a way to contact our ship."

"You—" Finally displaying some irritation that was not, in any way smug or arrogant, Viz cut him short.

"That is an order." His voice had no emphasis, nor was it louder than that which should be warranted in casual conversation. But the words, they fell to the ground with the weight of lead, irrevocable and ironclad. Their sole purpose was to be obeyed, something Diz managed with spitting bad-humour, swallowing his words and looking quite as though he would choke on them. He thrust out a shaking hand, the arm trembling uncertainly in the air, long, green fingers twitching weakly.

"Your glasses, then." Upon seeing his commanders mounting objection, Diz cut in in the same tone of deadened hatred. "I need something with tech...s-similar to that on the ship so that I can attempt to reach its wavelengths. You'll get your p-precious toy back, promise."

Reluctantly, the dark shades were traded in. Viz watched with pursed lips as Diz began to reel out the wires, looping them about his bandaged fingers in a manner that was as childishly spiteful as it was brokenly clumsy. Phil raised his eyebrows slightly, somehow unsurprised by the pettiness. Turning to share an amused look with Quiz, he frowned at the faintly sly smirk on the aliens face, a look that deepened with every crack of fibreglass. With Diz's alterations to the glasses becoming increasingly violent, he leaned cautiously over Quiz's shoulder.

"What's the joke?"

Quiz snickered quietly and eased his part of his jacket from the bandaging warped about his middle. He reached awkwardly into his pocket and gingerly extracted something. Something rectangular, regularly indented, and obviously metallic. Something he had once seen in the possession of Diz...

A remote. A damaged remote, sure, but Phil could see a red light blinking from within the depths of Quiz's jacket, so the thing had to be in some working order. Quietly, Phil withdrew, sharing a knowing glance with Quiz, who was watching Viz's mounting anger with a puckish glee. From the half-smile edging its way on to Diz's face, Phil guessed that he had seen it too. The rending tear of plastic had taken on a gleefully satisfied snap.

Deciding it was better to leave them to it, Phil backed carefully out of the kitchen; the air in there had taken in the dry-

weather crackle of a storm front. Something was amiss. Frowning slightly, he counted the members of the kitchen—an idiot, a madman, and a bastard...

Lightly, a finger tapped against his shoulder. Mrs Sundae stood in the shadow of the doorway, resolute as part of its frame, tight smile on her face a perfect imitation of deaths head. Behind her, Zack and Phred were standing locked in place, one bordering on nervous the other the same, but only ironically.

"Now, Phil Eggtree, you are going to explain exactly what's going on here."

"...Kinda a long story..."

"Oh don't worry," the older woman edged forwards, eyes darkening, "you've got all day."

From the kitchen, there was the anticipated hoarse shriek of anger and a pale imitation of breathy laughter that trailed into harsh coughs. Mrs Sundae tilted her head slightly, tapping her fingers against the plane of her folded arm. Each rhythmic impact fell like a guillotines blade.

Oh yeah, this was going to work out just fine.

 **•~*{0}*~•**

Deliriously pleased to have gotten a rise out of Viz, Diz was less pleased when the leader threw himself forwards, landing on the other with all the delicacy of a collapsing building. He choked slightly, mirth still stubbornly lodged in his chest. Viz's panting breaths were loud in his ear, sandpaper and smoke. Diz couldn't have said if his were the same; with his head so fogged, he wasn't exactly sure he was breathing at all.

"Give...give them...back." Ignoring the lancing pains that shot through his chest, the grating in his elbows, Diz waved his fingers tauntingly in front of Viz's functioning eye.

"Have...haven't...got them." Even those few words winded him, but it was worth the world to see Viz knocked off his pedestal, helpless as anyone else. A savage sort of satisfaction that nothing else could provide, seeing someone with the arrogance of a god beaten to the floor. It was almost enough to make him forget that he was lying in the mud with his leader. Almost enough to make him forget that, when all was said and done, they would help each other to their feet, carry on as normal...

Almost, but not quite. The fury in Diz despised the warm sense of camaraderie he felt even now, as Viz raised his hand, fully intending to strike his recalcitrant friend.

"Viz! They're here. I've got them..."

 _Quiz to the rescue. How quaint._

Still draped about the floor, Viz snatched the proffered shades. Sitting up with some difficulty, cursing every shift, he sat up and jammed his glasses into their usual position where they connected with a serviceable click. Eyes hidden, he managed to look a little more intimidating, eternal scowl bolstered by the exaggerated glare lent by the machinery, negated by the sickly pallor of his skin. Not wanting to be beaten by Viz's pitiful effort, Diz dragged himself into something that might have glanced at a sitting position sometime, several years ago.

"Establish a connection with...with what you've got. Earthlings have enough useful technology lying around—work with that." Diz smiled in response and resisted the urge to point out that Viz's glasses had been replaced lopsidedly. "We won't get anywhere...if you two don't pull your weight and stop acting like children." Ah, blatant hypocrisy, his favourite kind. "If you have any complaints...they can...they can wait until we are safely aboard the mothership."

Complaints. He wanted to laugh. Where did they keep the list?

Viz did have a valid argument. Everything—petty grievances, treachery, and dismissals—could wait until they returned to their ship and left the solar system. Already, Diz had the nagging suspicion that they had been here too long, that the clock that ticked above their heads was beginning its final countdown.

'Everything will be fine, Viz' Those smiling, shadowed eyes seemed to promise.

What a shame it is, that Diz doesn't keep his promises, and that Viz never learns.

 **•~*{0}*~•**

"Sir, we've found something."

Standing stiffly to attention, the Guard-Agent approached the figure silhouetted grimly in the chair at the window.

"Is the something useful?"

"We don't know sir."

"Well what am I supposed to do then?"

"You...you should come take a look sir..."

There was a theatrically heavy sigh.

"Alright then."

With an irritable huff, Nitwit rose from the window seat he'd been enjoying and flopped carefully after the Guard-Agent, bemoaning the inconvenience of this mysterious 'something'. Their progress was slow; since an incident with...he never could remember details—he always just assumed his eye drops had gone off—a few years prior, his vision had deteriorated considerably. Luckily, hallways here were barren, stainless steel chutes that favoured straight lines. Even someone of his relative idiocy would have trouble screwing it up.

Much had changed in seven years. Deciding to succeed where his parents had failed—with the same amount of success enjoyed by Hitler succeeding Napoleon—Nitwit had decided to give himself a title which made him seem intelligent.

He was now know as _Dr._ Nitwit.

He had also assumed complete control of Zone 5.1, but Nitwit didn't consider this half as important as the grandiose addition to his name. With the aid of one of Viz's chameleonic devices and some synaptic dampening tools, he was able to sneak in to the facility and pose as an eccentric funder who wanted to be more involved in the process. Or something along those lines; details really are a bore.

They reached the viewing window with minimal complaining. It took him a few seconds of squinting, head tilting, and near overbalancing before he worked out what was presented to him. When realisation hit, Nitwit pulled back in shock.

"That's the bosses' ship." Murky memories spun through the dreary greyness of his mind: a grating voice and endless planning, cool blue skin and heedless ambition, black eyes, rough hands, and rage. A smile worked its unconscious way onto Nitwit's face. He'd almost forgotten them! How long had it been? Thirty years or five minutes; damned if he knew.

Still, if the ship was here, they probably were too. Reasonably pleased with this deduction, it was a few, taxing seconds before Nitwit realised that they probably wouldn't want their ship falling into the hands of unknown authorities. Another few laborious thoughts, and he realised he could override the local forces and have Zone 5.1 take control of the research. With that, and the half hour it took for those thoughts to translate into action and effect, a reasonable observer would have fully understood why the other aliens had so despaired of Nitwit and why the productivity level of Zone 5.1 was so prodigiously low.

Still, all good things happen with time; by the closing of the week, the Vizion ship was carefully tucked away at the facility, and Nitwit was busy pondering his next move.


	6. Chapter 5: Established Contact

Hovering patiently somewhere above Earth, like an monstrous, metal spider, surrounded by drifting debris, the Vizion ship span idly, as empty and desolate as all it was surrounded by. Alone, it seemed almost bored, listless even; as though it were anticipating something long overdue...something massive that had failed to show. There was a great uneasiness to the floating leviathan, a creaking sort of tension that would have been plainly visible to any casual observer, had they cared to look.

As it happened, something was watching. Just over the horizon—if the endless blanket of space could be said to have a horizon—there was a second shape, smaller and sleeker, for all that it was indistinct. Lazily it edged forwards, creeping into the radius of the Vizion sensors

On board the Vizion ship, something in the labyrinth mind of circuitry clicked. Whatever vast, mechanical brain that operated that place was now intimately aware that it was being watched. Banks of monitors, unattended, blinked to life, each flashing a code. Had Phil been present, he would have recognised it immediately; it was a code he had hacked from those computers, a time that had been, all at once, a minute and seven years ago.

4701.

The code for the ships chameleonic devices.

With no one present to activate the primed system, the systems continued their urgent light show, inciting other useless protocol to join them. Soon, the control room was a frenzy of neon and white light.

Leisurely, the jaws of the windscreen seeming to smile in a crude imitation of amusement, the watching ship began to creep forwards. Above defenceless Earth, the merciless shadow drew irrevocably closer, trailing a thousand look-a-likes like a puppeteer with his living mockeries.

In no time at all, sinuous snakes of elegant metal had formed a shroud, a net, about Earth, the Vizion ship a dismal red jewel at the centre.

•~*{0}*~•

"Awww, yes! Skype from the fat man himself." Phred's cheering was echoed throughout the house, followed by crashes from the stairway as the absent members of the group made their ungainly way from the upper floors. The laptops blue flushed screen was beeping eagerly, the words 'Fat_Man43V3R' proclaimed in bold. Their monthly ritual set up like bowling pins, the four gathered at the screen, crushing each other, squirming awkwardly for a vantage point at the kitchen island.

Chubb, who was so fat that he really needed no introduction—every country had a reasonable view of at least part of him—was one of the few acquaintances that the group had cultivated from their old, elementary days. He had moved to Europe for an eating competition and tuned into their lives every once in a while via video message. Phil was glad he did; waving at the shadow of Chubb's body on the horizon really didn't have the same effect as a conversation with the boy. The Skype call opened, revealing part of an immensely flabby cheek punctured by one crinkled, smiling eye. Smiley waved.

"Hello Chubb! How are you?" The voice that responded was shockingly distinct for someone who appeared to be drowning in their own face.

"Not bad, you?" There was a second where the group froze, took an introspective look at the weeks prior, and decided to let Phil handle it.

"Oh, you know, the usual..." Chubb nodded—attempted to—and winked in a complicit manner.

"Soooo...something weird."

Diz, who had been sat at the opposite end of the island, briefly raised his head, eyeing the group with something that bordered on suspicion. Never taking his eyes from the alien, Phil gave Chubb a halfhearted shrug.

"Ah, y'know, nothing much. Meeting old acquaintances, catching up—planningtoinvadeagovernmentfacillityrunbyaliens—the usual. You?"

Chubb snorted, muttering some fond nonsense that sounded like 'idiot' under his breath. "Yeah right, same old Eggtree I suppose...you wouldn't be you if something normal was happening." With that, he launched into a longwinded account on the intricacies of his competition and Phil zoned out, pondering the events of the last few weeks.

Government agents still surrounded the place, with all the grace and innate secrecy of children playing hide and seek. Blindly, they seemed to stumble from one location to the next, as unsure of what they were searching for as they were of ever finding it. As funny as it was to watch them fumble in the dark Phil wasn't fooled into security; they remained randomly lethal and entirely confused, made even more of an issue due to their unpredictability. As of yet, they hadn't been found out; Phil wasn't willing to bet on how long that would last.

The aliens were—as far as Phil could either tell or be bothered to care—near enough fine to begin their plotting again. Or, more accurately, Viz and Diz were in the midst of their plans; Quiz seemed cautiously exasperated with them both, almost impatient but without the nerve to voice that fact—It was difficult to say. Begrudgingly Mrs Sundae—who had not taken the revelations of her guests murderous tendencies at all well, and was still frostily silent with all fostered beneath her roof—had given the three the all clear to move, and since then, the aliens had taken to avoiding each other. Well, as best they could in the cramped accommodations; often, this simply meant inhabiting different corners of the same room and stubbornly denying the others existence. Phil was slightly depressed by the fact that megalomaniac alien dictators giving each other what was essentially the silent treatment no longer surprised him. In the golf course of bad decisions his life had unwittingly become, situations like that were just par for the never ending course.

Sighing heavily, Phil dragged himself back to the room. There were bigger things to worry about, like the creeping suspicion that at least two people were hiding things from him...

As usual, his return to the present brought a vision of awkward chaos.

In a fit of concern, Zack had decided to abandon subtlety; he was draped across the island like a beached orca, swatting at the device Diz was indignantly clutching.

"So what are you doing? Making a bomb? Creating sentient robots to rule humanity? Mind control? What fresh hell have you conjured up?" Diz squinted down at the boy, seemingly unsure if Zack's prattling was part of some elaborate joke. He delivered his underwhelming response with a stiffness that amplified the humour of the situation in the way that only dignity in the face of idiocy can.

"I'm fixing the radio."

Robbed of his drama, Zack remained deadpan for the sake of humouring his friends.

"Unparalleled evil." There were several beats of nervy silence in which the two, nearly nose to nose, regarded each other narrowly, with cool hostility and smiles of steel that failed to look even vaguely genuine. Unable to see what he was interrupting, Chubb, sounding rather indignant, bleated from the monitor, aggravated by the stranger who had commandeered the attentions of his friends.

"Who the hell's that?"

Without looking up from the film of his phone, Phred snickered and smirked.

"Go back to eating France, Chubb."

Diz scoffed, correctly deducing their banter to be purely childish nonsense, returned to fiddling with the device. One of the dials clicked and span loosely; static spat and hissed, seeming to choke on its own mismatched voice for a second, before the radio flared brokenly to life.

To say that it was white noise would be an indescribable understatement. It was a concentrated assault from a vengeful army of sound, a buzzing, vibrant hurricane. Voices, that did not sound at all like voices, but like shoes on wet gravel, and tearing paper, raved in millions of languages align over each other, arguing and screaming. Electronic sounds fought with organic cacophony on every frequency imaginable in a way which disturbed the blood and forced the heart to dance to its maniac beat. It was a truly hellish combination, of no rhyme or reason, but of utterly remorseless, audible chaos. It seemed to stamp against the eardrums with a savage glee. Diz gave a thoughtful nod:

"Well, that all seems to be in order."

Zack shook his head, blinking owlishly like a woken sleepwalker. Looking about him with a bewildered witlessness, he seemed to meet the eyes of each person in the room and see none of it, shaking his head with the speed of someone caught in molasses. Phil reckoned that the confusion and mild disgust of someone in that situation would make for an accurate comparison to Zach in this situation.

"Literally nothing about this is normal." Phil barely resisted the snappish urge to remind Zach that the rest of them had realised that in elementary.

Diz shook his head.

"The radio is functional, trust me."

"I trust everything that's not you. You are the least trustworthy thing in this room. And that's saying a lot in a room with an oven that spontaneously combusts."

Still filming, Phred chipped in, wide grin painting his lips. If he were picky—and he was—Phil might have said that his friend was enjoying the situation a little too much.

"And a guy that spontaneously combusts."

"Smiley has a gun." The girl smiled guiltily and span a loop of her hair idly about a finger to avoid eyes that were not directed at her.

Diz wasn't fast enough to conceal his initial reaction to that sudden piece of information; his eyes narrowed a fraction, becoming something cynical and calculating, head tilting, before the expression was deliberately smoothed away, swept under the rug for someone else to deal with at a later date. In that split second, Phil felt his heart baulk nervously—of all the things he would have wanted the aliens to know, that was not one of them. Particularly if the alien that found out was Diz, someone whose mental stability he was not fully convinced of; Quiz might steal the gun to have the upper hand, Viz would shoot anyone he thought capable of getting in his way. Diz was the only alien who Phil honestly believed would attack people simply for the pure hell of it, and a weapon—particularly something as volatile as a gun, no matter how fitting it would be—was not something he was prepared to offer.

Oblivious to any of Phil's inner turmoil, Phred prattled on.

"Chubb might eat me."

Zach waved a hand.

"Chubb might eat Chubb; trust no one." Chubb made a flab-smothered noise of confirmation from the Skype; nobody was entirely sure which part he was agreeing to. Not wanting anyone to go unpunished in this session of group-shaming, Phil pointed at Phred.

"Phred likes dead memes." The older boy scoffed and flailed his arms into a horribly recognisable shape. Even Diz seemed to cringe.

"You mean classics."

Smiley spoke up, timid voice loud in the dingy kitchen. Her statement was addressed to Diz.

"Phil tried to kill you. He was, like, eleven."

Unfortunately for her serious sensibilities, the others were quite unwilling to make a commitment to the situations possible gravity. The jokes continued.

"Yeah, on a scale of one to ten."

"This went from horrible, potential murder, to irritating friends, right back to murder. I'm just saying; normal conversations aren't like this."

"What do you know?"

"Nothing. I'm guessing. Do normal people even talk?"

"Pro'lly not."

"What do we count as normal here? Like, Greg? Was Greg normal?"

"Greg spent seven years of his life sleeping, work up for half his driving test, then got a job in the DMV. Greg wasn't normal, just the boring type of weird."

"Ritchie?"

"Ritchie was an asshat."

"Hannah?"

"Hannah married a fire axe."

"Joseph?"

"You mean the guy who used to eat the insides of pens?"

"Point taken."

"What are you all on about?" Sounding patently confused and more than a little exasperated by this fresh barrage of strange colloquialism, Diz glared expectantly at Phil. For people who had spent years researching earth culture, it often shocked Phil how little the aliens really seemed to understand. It did however give him a better understanding of the dream-schools mechanics; it had simply been a compilation effort where people who had little to no idea of human society warped whatever snippets they found to suit their idea of an already broken education system.

"Never mind that—you won't get it. What the heck have you done to the radio. I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure that radios should be able to summon Satan."

As though on cue, the mutilated machine bleated a cheery chorus of 'pirate Fm!' Zach's face darkened.

"Cornish Satan." He said pointedly. Head tilted slightly, Diz frowned, pursing his lips as he attempted to puzzle through the significance of Zach's words. Deciding to spare him the bother, Phil wearily cut in.

"Look Diz, I don't know what you think 'fix' means, but that's not it. Whatever you've done...just make it stop, alright."

Long fingers twitched impatiently over the radios remains.

"I just need to adjust the frequency."

What followed was hardly any better; there was only one voice, sure, but that voice was harried, garbled beyond comprehension, and speaking some twisted version of English that even the strangest of gutter-slang and outdated vocabulary couldn't have comprised. In a way...it was almost recognisable...Phil sighed heavily, unsure of what he had expected. Why should anything be normal anymore?

"You weren't programming the radio for earth frequencies, were you?" Diz stretched his lips in something that was certainly not a smile and blithely shook his head.

"What made you think that?" Shuddering at the voice that was far too calm, unnaturally even, Phil fought the repulsed urge to back away. Diz rasped a knowing chuckle, turning back to his work and waving a dismissive hand. "I will texture it to normal once we have the necessary information. Now either be quiet, or leave; I need to listen."

There was a beat of silence in which no one moved. Then Chubb announced that 'he should probably be going, anyway' and vacated the weirdness. With him, the considerable buffer against hostility, gone, it seemed safer to follow his virtual lead and beat a retreat, something they managed with varied amounts of cohesion, trailing messily on after the other. Phil was the last to leave and maintained firm eye contact with Diz—who, despite his own words, was paying the radio very little attention—until the closing door cut his view. In its own way, the gesture had been a struggle for power, and even as he moved from one battle to the next, Phil couldn't have said who won.


	7. Chapter 6: The Agreement

Entering the sitting room, nothing became immediately obvious; the heavy, dun curtains had been drawn since the crash, warding away the prying eyes over overly-inquisitive neighbours and the occasional, disorganised agent. This was all Mrs Sundae had done in terms of acknowledging her guests in the last few weeks, keeping the outside world away and granting them full access to the lower floor of the house. Beyond this she had been stonily silent, something in it screaming this is your problem now. Having expected a lot less assistance, Phil couldn't say he begrudged her that point.

Taking full advantage of his hosts leniency, Viz was sprawled inelegantly across one of the sofas, legs draped off the arm, crossed at the ankles in arrogant repose. As he had been since Diz broke them, the alien leader was toying with his shades; all he really seemed to be doing was unplugging and splicing wires together but no one had quite gathered the nerve to question him on it. Not even Zach, whose policy with the aliens seemed to be a combination of 'fake the bravado until it's real' and the idea that if he had to die at their hands he'd make sure to have been a thorough nuisance first. While Phil couldn't agree with the stratagem, he wasn't about to try to stop it either, instead standing to one side as Zach harassed and Phred recorded, filing the videos under the folder 'play these at my funeral'. Gallows humour—great in principle, simply demoralising in practice.

Viz glanced up as they entered, decided he was better off ignoring them, and went about it with such efficiency that the gang may well have never existed. There was a dent in the seat of the nearby armchair, a sure sign that someone had vacated it recently, the day's newspaper folded over the arm. Out of courtesy to Quiz, Phil neglected to take the available seat; out of general spite, Viz remained lain on the only other chair, seeming to shift minutely to ensure he was taking up the vast majority of the seat. Not seeming to care that they were to be ostracised from usual comfort, Zach and Phred threw themselves on to the rug, Zach's flaming head coming dangerously close to polyester fibres. Flicking the remote from channel to channel, leaving the television to blare some banal nonsense that drowned out the mess of sound training insistently from the kitchen, the two struck up a nonsense of conversation. Shrugging, seeing no harm in joining the impromptu shrine to uselessness, Phil gallantly offered his girlfriend a prime seat on the carpet with a showman's flourish. Smiley put a playful hand to her mouth, lit up with a faint blush, then gave him a rueful shake of her head.

"Sorry Phil; my lecture starts in half an hour and I don't want to break my record." Smiley was renowned throughout her campus for having never missed a day of school in her educational career; Elementary, Highschool, and, thus far, College. If she managed to continue this trend, she was set to receive a personalised pair of socks. "I need to go now if I want to catch the bus."

"You know I don't pay attention to clocks." Smiley smiled (big surprise) but her eyes remained worried pools, their usual doe-brown filled with something grim and bleak. Unsure of how to offer comfort beyond puns, Phil shifted awkwardly. "Ok. Well...we'll see you later, yeah?" Smiley bit her lower lip, something she'd been doing too often recently—Phil could see the faint indentations her persistent teeth had made in the soft, pink surface. Stepping carefully in to her boyfriends space she looped an arm about his shoulders in a supplicating embrace that the others courteously ignored. She seemed almost breakable in his arms, fragile like spun sugar. With her head rested upon his shoulder, Phil faintly heard the whispered words ' _you know where it is if you need it_ ' before Smiley was drawing away again. There was a brightness fixed to her face, as obviously counterfeit as the TV presenter's perfect teeth; it was the kind of hopeful, reassuring look that only required the slightest of alterations to become a frightened one.

"Well don't wait up! We're moving on to advanced, hypothetical numerology today!"

With that, and a few muttered farewells from the floor, she was gone. Over the TV, Phil listened to the clatter of her sandals receding down the road and the cheerful exclamations she issued to the inhabitants of the cul-de-sac; the outside world leaked into the dull living room in a brief flash of colour that swiftly dissipated into the gloomy corners, cowering in a fit of nightmare disillusionment.

Life as it had been for the Sundae household continued uninterrupted; sullen strangers and creeping suspicions overseen by normalcy's grinning facade.

Life is strange in that, no matter what has occurred in the past or present, or what will continue in the future, it will always march on, caring nothing for those that fall before it. Under it's relentless stride, the aberrance of alien invasion was crushed by daily routine and the mundane normalcy of the world. The people were stupid and the universe didn't care.

Phil stretched, arching his arms above his head until the bones gave a relinquishing crack.

"Which is worse, d'y'think; ignorance or apathy?"

Phred shrugged, staring blankly at the screen of a phone that had timed-out several minutes ago. "Don't know. Don't care." He flipped his head back to grin mockingly at Phil. "Why? Thinking of leaving us uneducated scum and joining Smiley in advanced philosophy? Was that your starting piece?" He received a well meant jab in the ribs for his efforts, a reward he took with cackling good grace.

That was where they stayed for an undetermined amount of time—Phred and Zach splayed out on the floor in the halo of light offered by the television, Phil contemplating the intricacies of the world, and Viz studiously ignoring them all. Quiz joined the silent gathering minutes later, the swish of turning paper interrupting the quiet as he resumed reading.

A snappish order from the kitchen shattered whatever peace had managed to gather:

"Viz. Quiz. Come here, I have news."

With heavy sighs and a variety of muttered complaints in a language that was certainly not English, Viz dragged himself to his feet and vanished towards the kitchen. Considerably less bothered, Quiz rose and followed suit, a faint crease making a gentle appearance between his eyes.

In the living room, nobody moved. The silence seemed expectant.

Without looking at Phil, Zach pressed at the volume control-—the soap actress' dithering grew fainter until it was just her over dramatic, silenced flapping. Phred stared determinedly into the dead screen of his phone. Neither of them looked up as their friend left.

A shadow, Phil slipped after the departing aliens. His ear pressed against the softwood of the kitchen door, Phil could make just out the birds-wing flutter of the hushed conversation occurring beyond.

• **~*{0}*~•**

Glaring at the device in his hands, Diz snarled and tried to shake the pain of electrocution from his fingers. The jerky motions sent shards through the still healing wounds in his arms and threatened to break the tenuous fix of fractured bones, cutting the reflex action painfully short. As though aware of his plight, the bare, copper wires glinted cruelly, sending out a frill of sparks that caused the radio feed to distort into momentary static. Churning itself into s meaningless hiss, a noise like crumpling paper, the radio scratched away at the last vestiges of the lieutenants patience. It was with a slightly malicious smirk that Diz stabbed at the badly mutilated OFF switch—when that failed, he swiftly resorted to simply tearing a few strands of those treacherous wires from their sockets. Satisfied, he watched the machine struggle, with indifference; he had what he needed.

"Viz. Quiz. Come here, I have news." Raising his voice drew an ache from his throat, as though needles were worming their insidious way into the tender bed of flesh. Wincing, he was still rubbing at his neck when the aforementioned party entered, Viz with a ubiquitous scowl. Quiz scuttled behind him, quartet of arms braided about his chest. Viz's voice had recovered enough that his scratchy bark was only a shade softer than usual.

"This had better be good Diz." The leader tossed his head, glaring about the room, eying the ruins of the radio with disdain. "What's this?"

Diz rose to his feet, too proud of their protocol to remain seated—though his aching body would have much preferred to remain seated.

"I have been monitoring the radio waves emitted from the Vizion ship." Diz tapped the silent device. "From what I can tell, there is nothing amiss; some of the signals cut out before the transmission ended, but nothing new there." For the last hour or so, the garbled signals from the floating ship above had streamed through the impromptu machinery, detailing the vitals of the equipment aboard and the condition of the surrounding space. Old, much of it repossessed from derelict ships, it was never a surprise when their long distance transmitters failed. But, from what he could gather through the choppy signal, everything was operating as usual, the ship isolated.

Quiz frowned slightly, a faint smile tugging hesitantly at the edge of his mouth.

"Ok...well, that's good, isn't it?"

Deciding to be candidly polite—he had neither forgiven nor forgotten Quiz's disaffection—Diz only bothered with a short answer.

"It means we're probably not being followed, Quiz." Viz gave a derisive snort.

"Yet."

The lieutenant and his leader had barely spoken a word to each other since their initial spat. Now, Diz could feel the crimson switchblade of his temper, already whetted by the irredeemable irritant of having to both wire and observe a long range transmitter—worse, one whose reliability was dubious at best—flash. Deliberately, he kept his response curt; the migraine beginning to pulse from behind his eyes viciously rebuked any idea of conflict. Whatever head injury he had sustained had healed greatly—he was no longer trapped in perpetual disorientation—but chose, now to manifest itself in a series of headaches that refused to shift regardless of what he did.

Still, he would mend. He always did.

"We have time Viz."

Unfortunately—more accurately, predictably—Viz was determined to antagonise. To further the aggravation, he wasn't really wrong.

"Really? For five years, we've stolen weaponry from ships we attacked, destroyed whatever we could find to test our equipments effect, killed off whoever got in our way. Do you _really_ think they'll treat us as a minor threat, leave us alone? No. Whatever leniency we have from them now won't last."

Diz ground his teeth; technically nothing he had could refute that. The evidence stacked against all their hopes towered endlessly, threatening to collapse and crush them beneath the insurmountable force of the punishment they had struggled to avoid. To Diz's mind, judgment was theirs to mete out to the rest of the universe, and the thought of receiving it was repellent, more for the indignity than any pain it would cause. Mockingly, he waved a placating hand.

"I know we don't have indefinite time—" Viz cut him off, rapping his knuckles sharply against the tabletop.

"So get on with the report!" Diz felt his jaw crack.

"Sir." _Just get through the report. Everything can wait until we return_. "Unfortunately, the automatic systems have been activated due to our protracted absence, so I can't activate any of our remote based systems." Viz took hardly a second to respond.

"Hack through the security."

 _As if I hadn't already tried._

"I can't." Diz offered a sardonic shrug. "Apparently I made our firewall a little too well."

Viz sneered, falling quiet for a long, contemplative moment.

"So contacting the mothership is not an option."

"No." The statement fell flat and dead. "However, I have managed to establish the whereabouts of the crashed ship."

"Well where is it?"

"You're not going to like it..."

"Just tell us, damn you."

"Signals are coming from Zone 5.1."

Viz swore. Quiz determinedly avoided Diz's baleful eye.

"None of the operatives will accept a conference, and I'm not sure the connection would hold even if we could get through to them."

"So we should sneak in. Steal the ship."

Finally, Quiz broke; throughout the conversation, he'd been stood waveringly at the sideline, fingers a twisted lattice of anxiety, but mercifully silent. Now, emboldened with a useless opinion that none really cared to hear, his voice was pitched high and drawn thin with stress. It was a chisel scraping at the base of Diz's skull.

"We don't have enough time! They'll be on to us before long, we can't stay here much longer! If we have to waste an age retrieving the ship, we'll end up stuck here!" Quiz almost verged on righteous outrage, fists curling at his side, mouth twisting to something sharp not warranted by the words he was trying to form. As far as Diz was concerned, the underling could take his petty complaints elsewhere; the other alien was entirely at fault for the situation as it stood.

 _If you had just stayed where I told you to..._

Once in a blue moon, instead of each alien fighting solely for themselves, brief alliances would form, meaningless and to be forgotten soon after. But it was an exceedingly rare occasion indeed that Viz agreed with an idea put forth by Quiz. Whatever delusion that ruled the red alien appeared to be worsening.

"He's right, we need something faster; we won't be able to leave the planet if they catch up to us."

Finally despairing of the ingrates unhelpful nature, Diz threw himself back into his seat, arms thrown out in a sarcastically grandiose gesture, eyes falling shut.

"Well, if _you_ have any ideas how to leave the planet without a craft, I'd be glad to hear them."

It was unclear whether Viz was attempting to intimidate his recalcitrant subordinate, or if it was a more severe attempt to instigate a fight; stepping closer to the green alien, he leaned forward, stitched lips a sneering rictus.

"I _expected_ you to come with an actual plan, Diz, not this nonsense. I think you're _trying_ to get us caught now."

A venomous calm had settled over the lieutenant, the silent eye of the hurricane that preceded disaster. His voice barely rose above a whisper.

"Not all of us are traitors, Viz. And when you have something useful to bring to the table, I'll give you full permission to criticise my ideas. Until then, keep your mouth shut."

"I don't require your permission, Diz." The two were nose to nose; Diz could see his own snarling face reflected dully in Viz's angular lenses. "Don't forget your place."

The lieutenant fought a laugh, unwilling to damage his voice further— _forget his place_. It was far more likely that Viz was forgetting who he was talking to.

"Don't forget that I'm the only one who can get us out of here." Diz's mouth stretched in a mirthless smirk, "you _need_ me."

For several long heartbeats, tension overtook the kitchen, tension of the dripping, creeping sort that could crush spirits through its mere suggestion. The implicit knowledge that they—the three of them—were snared together through necessity struck Viz like a visible blow. Even Quiz, arguably the most useless member of Vizion, was now integral to any escape they might attempt to make. For the proud leader, it make for a bitter pill to swallow and Diz relished it.

A strained voice croaked its protests from the corner.

"Um...I-I think you've both forgotten the-the point of this."

"Shut it Quiz."

Too late a reprimand, the moment had slipped silently from the air. Viz straightened with a heavy sigh, drawing away from Diz—who found the shift in tone faintly concerning; violence was as natural, familiar. It was what they survived on. Void of anger, their leader simply looked grim and weary, lost almost: Quiz was tremulous and uncertain, looking desperately between them in search of answers neither could give: Diz himself was irritated and in pain, sick of their prolonged stay on earth and in no mood to be criticised by his crew mates.

Defeated by a lack of options, it was a forlorn wait for the inevitable declaration.

Viz pinched the bridge of his nose, folding his lower arms across his abdomen.

"There is _no_ other option?" He ground out.

 _Stay here and die._

"Not that I can find." Unwilling to offer comfort, Diz begrudgingly continued "As it currently stands, we are alone in the solar system. For how much longer..." He shrugged and sorely regretted it. "I can't say. Whatever we do...we need to get it done quickly."

Silence. Knowing silence.

"Well..." As usual, Quiz's stammerings were overcut by a stronger, harsher voice.

"We'll do it."

That would have been the end of the matter. They would have left in the night, vanished from that quaint suburban house. Spirited away to some laboratory when their plan inevitably failed, the children they had hounded would never know, understand, or care what had occurred. Faded into obscurity, the last of Project Vizion would have burnt out and vanished without ceremony. Perhaps that would have been better...

Sadly for the universe, Phil Eggtree was not one to remain uninvolved.

From behind the group, the yellowed kitchen door, smattered lightly with grease and closed up until that moment, gave an officious click. Every eye in the room snapped to the disturbance; Quiz tilted his head in a nonverbal query. Both of the others had guessed the identity of their intruder several seconds prior. In truth, Diz was far from surprised, almost impressed, in fact. Really, of all the things they should have anticipated, the boy should have been the first...

Swinging open with the drama of a dead showman, the door revealed Phil with an oddly smug air for an inanimate object. Still shorter than the majority of the aliens—equal only to Quiz—he nevertheless cut an almost imposing figure; his eyes were deadpan dark and impossible to discern, his brows drawn low. The boys mouth had cut a sharp quirk of something that was both distaste and amusement at a joke Diz could only guess at, and everything about the figure he drew had been driven harsher by the unstable light that flickered from whatever grey-lit program played in the living room. With the bored superiority only achievable by jaded adults, Phil met the eyes of each of them, raising his eyebrows as he went. Diz was surprised to feel a molecule of respect for the boy—the child they kidnapped—run a course down his spine. It kept the derisive laugh at bay when Phil finally spoke.

"Oh, you can _bet_ you've got explaining to do."

• **~*{0}*~•**

"So...who's after you, exactly?"

They were seated about the island, one at each edge with Viz and Diz doubled up on the left side. Interrogating the aliens was a disconcerting experience, Phil found; none of them were forthcoming in any fashion. It was like shifting puzzle pieces in the dark and trying to guess what picture they would grow to be—utterly pointless.

Didn't mean he'd stop, though.

"You don't need to know that, Eggtree. Just accept that we have been here for far too long already." Viz was acting a as the group's reticent spokesman, grinding out each sentence as though it were being torn forcibly from his chest.

"You think they'll catch up..."

"They might. It's something we risked by lingering about earth like we did. Suffice to say, we expected to get away with it. _Some people_ ," Quiz flinched as both aliens turned to glare at him. "Have compromised that, but if we act swiftly there remains a chance of escape."

Phil contemplated the people before him. While the notion of them leaving earth was appealing, something in him, a vestigial part of something that may have been honour, may have been compassion, refused the idea of leaving the aliens to their own mismatched devices. It was unfortunately obvious that none of them were up to much and, while that might not have mattered much if they were to simply summon a ship remotely, breaking into a guarded facility was a different matter entirely. Phil didn't fancy their chances if they went at that alone—together, they could hardly endure a ten minute conversation, let alone a lengthy espionage.

Then there was the issue of the unidentified ' _other party_ '. Whatever nameless group had the ability to put the Vizion agents on the run were not people Phil wanted near the earth. Dealing with a war between aliens...well, he was in no hurry to jump to that scenario.

For the greater good; wasn't that the phrase? Help the alien terrorists to avoid conflict with the things that were hunting them down. Ignore the majority of your conscience in favour of a lucrative protection strategy.

 _Since when was it my decision? When did this become my cause? It's not my choice..._

But it was his call to make. As far as deciding factors went, Phil Eggtree was the unwilling, determinative element. He had been since the tender age of eleven and a small part of his brain acknowledged that with a mixture of bitterness and stern pride. As usual, his own, unavoidable choice caught him off guard, as did the near-illicit thrill that shot through his sternum.

"You're not going without me."

Viz's head snapped up, shock making a warped passage across his features.

" _What_." Phil lent back, folding his arms in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. The whip-crack voice shot over his head.

"To Zone 5.1. I'm coming too. To make sure you lot leave, and nothing else makes its way over. Plus, I know the facility, probably better than you; Diz didn't know the way 'round at all."

Viz pursed his scarred lips consideringly. Those either side of him were stiff and silent. Phil could feel Quiz's strange, soft eyes monitor his every move.

"Very well. I suppose you're cannon fodder, if nothing else." Somehow, Viz's callous response felt like a scratch, not the blow it should have been. Venturing into a hostile place he had fought to leave with companions whose protection he couldn't count on should not have drawn a victorious smile to Phil's lips.

Viz spat a curse in garbled Not-English before sweeping—limping—from the room. Like spades of flung gravel, his voice carried back to them, returned to its full glory of snapping orders.

"Diz, Quiz; we need to pinpoint the ships location. Bring that damned radio system."

Both left, almost immediately after, a direction restoring their sense of urgency and purpose—there was an energy in actions that had been exceedingly listless for the weeks of their recovery. The ' _almost_ ' was Quiz, who took a second to brush past Phil before departing. The small act of secrecy was performed awkwardly, clumsily, and would have been noted immediately had the other two aliens not already departed.

Phil felt a rectangular weight drop into the pocket of his hoodie. A careful finger found clean, metallic lines and a series of regular indents.

The remote to the ship.

Whatever game he was playing had suddenly grown disturbingly intricate; he was playing chess in the dark with the reassurance of an ace up his sleeve.


	8. Chapter 7: Back to the Facility

**NOTE: so, I'm back. Didn't mean to be gone for this long, I kinda fucked up when it got to summer. What can I say? It was hot and I didn't feel like thinking XD**

 **So if you're still here, nice to have you. I'm at college now so updates may not be super regular but I'll try not to do** _ **that**_ **again. Enjoy the story and let me know what you think. NOTE END.**

"Status report; what is the salient data regarding the Vizion case as it stands?"

 **Responding...Report: all Project Vizion ships in the vicinity have been captured and are now in the possession of the Enquiry. These include a mothership of the variety 004, two transport vessels of a minor class, and numerous escape pods. A conclusive study of all seized items can be found in file Alpha 1.6: last updated 6 hours ago.**

"And what of this planet?"

 **Responding...Report: planet commonly identifies as Earth, the third planet from the star sol.**

 **Information...The dominant species identifies as Homo-sapien, otherwise referred to as human. Earth currently has a dominant populace of roughly 7.6 billion but they are far from any proper astrological progression. No allies, no territory, no notable achievements listed. Estimated time for the planets complete destruction—4.6 hours. Optimum projectile—UD-73/5 incendiary missile. Shall I begin the launch procedures?**

"That will not be necessary, Computer. Scan for Vizion technology on this...Earth."

 **Order accepted...**

 **Scanning...**

 **Responding...technology corresponding to that utilised by Project Vizion can be found in the Northern hemisphere, in the divided sector 06.**

 **Action...highlighting notable area on all available mapping systems.**

 **Information...area is largely non-hostile. The only noteworthy building is the independent research facility Zone 5.1, established 11 years, five months, three weeks, and four days ago. Permission to hack the data systems of research facility Zone 5.1.**

"Granted."

 **Accessing...**

 **Information...the technology run by the facility is far in advance of earth equipment. Shows similarities to constructions made by Project Vizion. Radio waves picked up from the facility perfectly correspond with those given out by the captured Vizion ships.**

"Assemble a ground team. They are to scour this 'Zone 5.1' and transmit all and any findings. Anything involving Vizion should be given priority. This includes—but is not limited to—data, tech, and any suspects in the vicinity. If found, these items should be brought back to the ship for identification."

 **Order accepted...**

 **Transferring instructions...**

 **Responding...what is the policy regarding humans.**

"Stay out of sight, do not engage. However...if any prove to be an active threat, they are to be disposed of. Any seen to be assisting Vizion shall be brought here for questioning. Preferably unharmed, but this is not priority.

 **Order accepted...**

 **Transferring instructions...**

 **Responding...what is the policy regarding Project Vizion?**

"Shoot to kill."

 **Order accepted...**

 **Transferring instructions...**

 **Ground Unit 719 is ready for deployment. Requesting permission to launch...**

"Permission granted."

 **Enquiry Ground Unit 719 has been deployed to Zone 5.1.**

• **~*{0}*~•**

Dawn crept in like a stray cat, dirty and immensely unwelcome. Light seemed to smear and streak over things, unable to adhere to what it touched, gliding aimlessly about in a wet glow. Viz half wondered why it had bothered at all; the sun had not warmed the earth whatsoever, and the street in which he stood was clammy cold and thick with mist. It was the earliest hours of the morning and, lighted only by the dismally glowing clouds and the failing efforts of a few flickering street lamps, Viz and Diz were attempting the unattempted—hot-wiring a car. Well, unattempted on Earth—they had stolen plenty of vehicles via this method while they skirted asteroid belts in the far reaches of nearby Galaxies. Over time, it had become an increasingly necessary skill utilised to keep their own equipment functioning. However, in that quaint suburb, the very idea of such sabotage seemed to have passed by without remark, only catching on to the alien outliers, sensing kinship in their own blatant discrepancy.

Viz was always, in some sense, bitterly miserable. There was, however, something about standing in unfamiliar, wet surroundings in a tattered uniform that took the omnipresent dread of the past weeks, shook it roughly, and turned it into a heedless, snappish anxiety. Never with much patience for error, his tissue-thin temper had stretched to breaking point, each fraying strand lashing his crew mates with vengeance.

Quiz was somewhere inside—dithering like an idiot, he thought savagely. How predictable—the clod couldn't even manage the simple task of rousing Phil without making it take an age, leaving Viz in the sullen company of his second in command. Though the pair were of a similar ability in terms of technological skill, Diz had been forcefully elected to tackle the task of rewiring Mrs Sundae's car. Viz had declared himself watchman, ignoring the fact that his damaged glasses only offered a murky, indistinct version of his surroundings, the display flashing and glitchy. They had resisted any attempts of repair; his sense of depth perception being considerably off did nothing to improve his mood. The fact that he had been dragged awake several hours too early on Viz's abrasive command had left Diz equally sour.

So far, though the frosty atmosphere between them hadn't thawed, they had managed a facade of civility that was mainly comprised of stiff silences and the occasional, thinly veiled jibe. Not bothered for that to change, Viz was perfectly content to let Diz continue his attempts with the car, scrunched in the drivers seat and offering a litany of muttered complaints. Each one was only faintly audible to Viz, who was standing, arms folded, by the cars side, well aware that he was more noticeable than the crumpled figure he was guarding and honestly too tired to care.

"... _of course, there couldn't be a simpler way...we couldn't steal someone else's locomotive...that old woman's going to kill us...bloody Quiz_..."

Viz was silent. Thus it continued. Then...

Diz glanced up, slanted eyes narrow and mistrustful.

"Do you think Quiz _actually_ understands the severity of all this?" His voice was muffled by the closed window, but too clear for Viz to ignore the comment with feigned deafness as he would have liked to.

"He'd better. We've told him enough times what would happen if they...if we failed. What is there to misunderstand at this point? He is dense, but I doubt he's so thick that he can't understand a life and death situation when it strikes."

Diz sniffed. "He's never had to deal with them as an adversary. The last time he faced the Enquiry, they parted as friends."

"He has a better understanding of the force they'll be willing to use to capture us. Whatever partnership they had in the past was destroyed when he came with us. There is no way that he could be unaware of that."

Diz hummed, giving an apathetic shrug and slipping further in the drivers seat. His lips were skewed in an unasked question and Viz had to fight the urge to snap at him for it; questions would not buy their freedom. They hadn't the time for something so disrespectfully unnecessary.

With a hearty cough of steam, the car chugged sluggishly to life, dials glowing dimly from the shadows of the dashboard. Diz slid himself awkwardly from beneath the wheel, bowing mockingly to Viz. Both pretended not to notice the fact that he stumbled as he rose. Determined not to offer Diz any credit, still irked by his lieutenants questioning, Viz hardly spared any of it a glance.

"Brilliant; now we have nothing to while we wait for Quiz." He growled, entirely unimpressed.

"You mean _I_ have nothing to do; you've been useless from the start." Diz quipped. Ignoring Viz's snarling, he peered at something behind the leader. "In any case, it looks like you've spoken too soon—as is usual. Here they come."

Quiz was taking immense care to be quiet, his exaggerated movements comical, bordering ridiculous. He was not helped any by Phil, who had wandered out, the spitting image of calm, rubbing sleep from his eyes but otherwise as cynically dispassionate as ever. For a second, Viz thought he saw the silvery edge of something metallic as it slipped between the folds of the boys pocket. Blink. Gone. What with the fissures and fog of his glasses, Viz couldn't have accurately said, one minute to next, whether anything was real, or merely lights' playful hoax.

In any case, Eggtree was well deserving of the watchful glare he received. The boy was an enigma, one that—in another world—Viz would be fully intent on breaking; after everything the organisation had survived, it took one human child to bring them to their knees. When they looked up, there he was, standing unharmed in the ashes...

 _Why won't you take a hint and leave? Why walk into danger when you stand to gain nothing?_

 _When will you realise that this is far beyond your frail control?_

Each was a thought that flickered through Viz's mind, a minnows tail of distrust and discomfort that flashed briefly before dissolving in to the hazy blackness of The Plan. Instead of voicing any of these, he shuffled through his hand of general grievances:

"You're both late."

Phil cold sarcasm stole any thought of dawns warmth from the air.

"Well _good morning_ to you too Viz. Glad to hear that you're enjoying this fine day as much as the rest of us." His eyes drifted to the car, fully equipped with more scorn for Diz, only to freeze when he saw the tangle of wires nesting beneath the wheel. " _Aaaaaaand_ you've broken the car. Great. Left you alone for five minutes. You do realise I have the keys?" He held them out and, as if that was not enough proof, danced them about so they clattered irritatingly. "Literally none of that was necessary."

Viz ground his teeth. He could feel time grating against his skin, sandpaper. The immense lassitude of everyone he was forced to cooperate with was clipping at the thread holding the sword above their heads; he could _see_ it.

"Enough." Even to him, the word felt like a glass shard. "We are wasting time that we no longer have. Eggtree; you will take us _directly_ to the facility, without delay. I've had enough nonsense for one day."

"Are you sure? 'Cause the days only just started and—"

Something in Viz's jaw cracked. Phil fell silent.

" _Get in the car_."

"You got it."

• **~*{0}*~•**

Without knowledge of the surrounding geography—geography having never been his strong suit—Viz had no concept of where they were. Several hours of driving had cultivated the hope that their journey was drawing to a close several times, before dashing that notion with another jolting corner or sweeping roundabout. The relentlessly cheerful chirp of the satellite-based navigational device sounded each direction with a sense of endless ease. To the machine, the journey's end was not a concept; Viz had the uneasy suspicion that, given its way, it would direct them up and down back roads and through isolated towns for an eternity.

Uncomfortably, he shifted his position for what had to be the millionth time. As before, it relieved none of his discomfort and only served as a needless reminder of the two sat either side. Due to their somewhat unusual appearance, Phil had suggested that Viz and his crew take the passenger seats of the car, leaving the 'shotgun' unoccupied. This was a brilliant plan...until you took into consideration the fact that Mrs Sundae's car was rarely used for anything more than a brief shopping trip, the back seats tasked with ferrying no more than a few bags at a time. Attempt to cram three adult-sized figures in that meagre space, and a brilliant plan swiftly becomes an exercise in inadequacy and ineptitude worthy of performance. Even with their species naturally slender proportions—save for Quiz, who was aberrantly bulbous—it was a tight fit that grew more irritating by the second as muscles cramped and stiff joints locked firmly in place. Sat in the middle seat, Viz had become more thoroughly acquainted with his companion's sharp elbows than he ever thought possible.

Never being people to neglect an opportunity to twist the (usually metaphorical) dagger, the beginning of the car journey had been an ungodly tussle of jabs and discreet shoves. Safe from all this, Phil could only wonder how the aliens survived with each other on a day to day basis, let alone manage to run a criminal organisation. The rear-view mirror was filled with multicolour faces, each bearing expressions of distinct annoyance.

Diz winced slightly, the expression barely perceptible as it flitted over the side of his face visible to Viz. He felt his lieutenant move, pressing a hand against his side, just below his left arm. Prolonged pressure against his sides had been deeply uncomfortable since...

Viz silently insisted that he was pressing harder into Quiz out of hatred for the blue alien and nothing more. He stridently ignored the faintly grateful look thrown his way, and raised his voice to address Phil.

"Without sounding like a petulant child, are we there yet?"

"You breathe and I think you're a petulant child, Viz. And, well...we're _kind of, almost_ there. It's around here somewhere."

"Can you bear to be a little more specific?"

"...somewhere..."

Quiz gave a morose laugh.

"Wonderful."

Shadows were drawn on the ground in towering lengths, the sun was high in the sky, a golden blossom against milk-white clouds; Viz could have sworn he heard it laughing.

• **~*{0}*~•**

Really, they needn't have worried quite so much. Zone 5.1 really hadn't attempted to hide itself and, once the car had finally managed to free itself from the surrounding suburb, it pounced upon them with a swiftness that was almost predatory. One second they were traversing a narrow lane, all winding corners and near-impossible angles, the next, and the car was hurtling out over an airfield towards a leviathan of concrete and steel. It looked precisely as Viz remembered it; less like a high-tech research facility, more like a warehouse that had been forcefully combined with whatever they could find inside an electrical box. It looked like a power station made out of cardboard. He was still proud of how complete the cover was, how simple and genius. What better way to hide the full scope of their enterprise, than behind a masquerade of total incompetency?

Phil stopped the car. Diz opened his door, Quiz opened his. Viz made a valiant dive towards open air, entirely disregarding his entanglement with the other two; both were yanked along with him. All three aliens attempted to exit one door at the same time, an involuntary decision for most.

This, as you can imagine, went badly.

Leaping from the drivers seat, Phil was greeted by the somewhat familiar sight of the facility. The seared mark on the back of his neck—a memory burned into the skin, the branding of his childhood—itched as he ran grim eyes over the structure; the few satellite, Google-maps images they had gleaned from the Internet somehow hadn't prepared him for the reality of the place. Half-remembered, half-foreign, it was ugly and childish scene, far from the sinister professionalism had been his impression for so long. It was ripped straight from a B-movie and seemed hilariously, tragically, hideous.

' _Last time I was here, I was running for my life._ ' There was nothing to soften the blow of that thought. Nor had there been any previous indication that it would bother him as much as it would. Like the beam of laser fire that scarred his neck, the thought had come from nothing and, though it didn't hurt, left a sick sense of discomfort in its wake.

Not that that would stop him. Purpose in mind, he was determined that it would take more than a bullet to get rid of Phil Eggtree. With all the gravity he could muster, eyes locked on to the building before him with the sort of laser-focus usually reserved for sniper rifles, Phil stepped forwards...

And promptly tripped over the three figures sprawled messily on the ground. Being credibly dramatic is a lot harder when your mouth is filled with asphalt. In a list of 'top ten ways to ruin a dramatic mood' it featured at number seven, losing to 'wet shoes on linoleum' by the narrowest of margins. Phil sighed, watching gravel chunks dance merrily along in the breeze he created.

"I really don't think I tell you guys I hate you often enough." He mumbled, pushing himself up. "I really hate you."

"Love you too." Diz sneered from somewhere at the bottom of the heap.

"Like really, really hate you."

"Yes Phil, we get the picture."

"I hate you more than white cats hate black clothes."

"Ouch."

Sneaking up on anything is a difficult business to master and, without their equipment, it was a skill the Vizion crew lacked. Needless to say, that difficulty is compounded when your skin colour is of a somewhat unnatural variant. Despite the fact that the building before them seemed completely deserted, the air was thick with unease as the group tried and failed to be inconspicuous and simply walked up to the imposing front doors.

Now these front doors were not, perhaps, any larger than the average set of double doors; the sort would Phil recognise from his school days. Unlike such ordinary doors, these seemed to have been cast in solid titanium, were sealed with numerous heavy, electronic locks, and looked about as likely to open as the brick walls that flanked them. A keypad, fairly innocuous in comparison, blinked idly on a panel set to the left.

"Ok." Phil began to inspect the keypad, "years of experience tell me that this thing probably wants a number. Any important dates it could be? I feel like a bunch of ones is always a good bet..." He trailed off; the Vizion crew were glancing between themselves, smirking faintly. Phil got the sneaking suspicion that he had been excluded from some monumentally unfunny joke, and was quite sure that uncovering said joke would not be satisfying enough to warrant the dent to his pride. Still...

"Alright," with a sweeping gesture, he stepped back from the keypad. "You do it."

With that infuriatingly superior expression still welded on to his face, Viz stepped forwards. His fingers hovered over the keypad...then reached for the side of the panel and slid it to the side. The whole thing scrolled into the wall and revealed a large, red, unfairly obvious button. Viz pressed it, and the guard doors slid open in the same manner as elevator doors, in that it was immensely underwhelming and exuded an of belated regret. Even the corridor beyond looked more like a horizontal lift shaft than something that could be found in a functional institution.

"Expectation subverted." Diz intoned smugly.

Phil pinched the bridge of his nose and hoped that his hand had obscured any indication that he was impressed.

They entered the tunnel which, for the most part, deserted. Though, with how aware the people that walked those corridors were, the place may well have been empty...

First time the group encountered a guard-agent, Phil was sent reeling in shock, flight and fight instinct warring viciously and resulting in in what was quite possibly the most ridiculous, undignified scream in existence—it was partly a sneeze and mostly the noise a cat makes if you tread on its tail.

The aliens disregarded the figure entirely, skirting about the silent, standing figure.

Phil swallowed; the agent had a plasma gun clasped in unmoving fingers that looked like clay. If it weren't for the fact that he could see the man's chest rise and fall, Phil would have believed the figure to be a manikin, a sick doll. The aviators obscured everything they covered and it would have been common sense to presume, for all the reaction the agent gave them, that there was nothing beneath them, no eyes—just smooth, unmarked skin.

"What's up with this guy?" Phil felt the whisper scrape raw in his throat. Already quiet, his voice was endeavouring to go lower still, frightened of the very idea of disturbing the dust in the halls. Viz had no such compunction.

"The synaptic dampeners we used to disguise our presence had unprecedented side effects after long term use." He paused in his stride to look at the grim monument, eying it critically. "After a while, it began to damage the senses, permanently alter perceptions, disconnecting memory neurones and leave them drifting. The greater the period of contact they had with someone using the dampeners, the faster they deteriorated. When we left, it had gotten so bad that the guard-agents were resorting to writing notes for themselves—and forgetting what they had meant to write by the time they had found a pen..."

Phil thought of all the empty post-it notes in the box room and said nothing.

"It wasn't this bad when I was here last." Diz murmured, sounding a great deal calmer about that experience than he had the last time it was brought up. "They reacted to verbal and physical stimuli as well as following orders. This one's completely catatonic." As if to demonstrate, he reached an arm out and snapped long fingers before the agents face.

There was no response; he was as implacable as a brick wall and a great deal more eerie, for brick walls are expected to be silent voids of emotion.

Viz paused...then removed, from the agent's absent grasp, the plasma weapon, checked it was loaded and calmly clipped it to his side.

"So that means..."

"That means some _one_ or some _thing_ has been keeping this place running. The agentscan't hurt us without orders, it's best if we just let them be."

They proceeded with more caution after that. Through the narrow, unlit corridors that thrummed with abstract, mechanical wheezings, their steps echoed in a harsh staccato, a metallic applause from some unseen, arbitrary audience. Each time they passed one of those suited, blank-faced sentinels Phil averted his eyes, only half conscious of the action; in the reflection of their glasses, he didn't see someone who was almost an adult. Instead, the figure melted and blurred and shrunk to show a bald boy in an oversized hoodie running for his life.

• **~*{0}*~•**

When they did encounter life, it was in what felt like the deepest bowels of the facility. Each labyrinthian tunnel seemed to lilt gently downward, helpfully dropping them lower and lower towards the elevator shaft that was the stations heart. After travelling through inky nothing for an age (read: half an hour) Phil felt that they had reached the limits of reality, that the tangible world would vanish completely if they ventured ant deeper.

Viz stopped short. There was a flackery aberrance in the corridor up ahead, a fluttery moths-wing of light that hadn't quite decided if it wanted to exist yet. The source was what could have been a half-open door, but could also have been any variation of nameless, rectangular structures; there wasn't enough definition to say. Even when he was just a few feet away, Phil could make out no more detail. If anything, the object seemed to fade, as though they had ruined the trick of it's existence by approaching and it was sulking itself into shadow.

Overly wary, the aliens hovered in the corridor, Diz checking the bizarre piece of malformed tech he had constructed from the radio's remains, Viz smoothing idle fingers over the stock of the gun. Bored of inactivity, Phil lent into the brightest point of the fracturing light.

To room beyond was no better defined than the door that led to it. It could have been any shape known to man, have any dimension imaginable. All at once, it was a broom cupboard and a ballroom. Only one thing was certain; it was entirely colourless, a monochrome nightmare of bright strobe.

Phil took very little notice of the figures crowding the room, struck, as he was, by the film playing out on one of the large monitors lining the far wall. Their silhouettes had four arms and something glinted dully in the centre of their foreheads. These traits were, unfortunately, viewed as having secondary importance and went unmentioned...

"Oh look, it's your defeat, O' mighty Viz."

The aliens had yet to look in to the room. Viz failed to even look up.

"In case it has escaped your notice, I'm still here, despite your pitiable best efforts, earthling.

"You do realise that I thought I killed you, right? And my friends. Thats kind of fucked up when you're eleven years old."

It was thrown up on the largest monitor, the last few moments before Viz was 'defeated'. Grainy camera-feed ripped from some rudimentary security system that crackled and spluttered with the strain of simply being. To both Phil and the unidentified watchers, it was the most fascinating show imaginable.

Phil could see himself— _I was never that small_ —a scrawny kid in an oversized hoodie, working laboriously to turn a ships wheel that was twice his size. Phil's muscles ached with the memory of the strain. On his face, what little of it was visible, there was a triumph that made his older self queasy.

 _I thought there would be a button or something. Everything else had a button._

It would have been a lie to say he had expected the laser to fire of its own accord.

The gun flashed white and the camera view changed; now the scene displayed was that recorded from the room outside of the main cabin. Quiz and Diz were leaning over a display screen, Quiz tapping hurriedly at one of the many keyboards scattered over the desk. Both wore identical expressions of shocked horror. In Diz's, there was a shadow of belligerent disbelief, as though he could force everything to undo itself through sheer will.

"Viz, what just happened?" There was a communication transmitter on the desk. When the alien fell silent, it spat mindless static. Diz licked his lips.

"Viz, please respond. Do you copy?"

Static. Quiz was becoming visibly frantic.

"Open visual link, lower communication barrier. Viz, do you copy? Please respond..."

The static of the speakers spread to one of the overhead monitors like gangrene. Diz's eyes widened, lips pressing into a thin line. The image was small and grainy, but Phil was certain the green alien was shaking.

"Move, Quiz. I want to see..." His voice hadn't changed—it was still level and calm, almost unnervingly polite—but there was a quiver in the background that spoke volumes, in all its staticky inaudibility. Quiz darted away from the keyboards and hovered over the lieutenants shoulder, wringing both pairs of hands in a way which made them seem boneless.

Diz entered codes in to several boxes that had appeared on screen. Visually, they were comparable to the login screen of millions of media sites, the only difference being the gloomy colour-scheme and the Vizion logo. Gaining access, Diz scrolled hastily through a heavily encrypted page and clicked a link at the pages base. Several graphs were displayed, some making jagged, up-down patterns of speeding lines, others cycling in neat curves. Phil could only just read the labels on the eight-bit display; _Viz, Diz, Quiz, Nitwit, Oswald._

"His vitals are fine, connection's still running," Diz murmured, more to himself than Quiz. He pulled back from the screen and pressed his fingers into his temples, eyes shut tight. Phil could feel the angry relief of the scene.

"Alright...Quiz, can...can you wait here for Viz? He'll need someone to activate the transmitter. I'll take the children back to earth..." His voice gained an assertive tone, but remained slightly hesitant; it was quite obvious that, though he was capable, he wasn't left in control often.

"Sure Diz." Quiz mumbled, eyes still fixed on the dancing lines of the monitor. " _Sure_..."

Phil shivered as Diz turned towards the door leading to the main cabin. Perfectly captured by the dithery security system was the too-precise, serene smile Diz had been wearing when he 'congratulated' them for their victory. Only now did he realise how much of a mask it was, now that he could see the expression slipping into place like a hand into a well-worn glove. It smoothed away any concern or contrary emotion, a smile hovering beneath two cold, dead eyes like a crescent moon beneath twin black holes.

"Remind me to give him hell for throwing me through the door like that."

With that, Diz stepped through to the cabin and the video paused. One might have expected the aliens watching the clip to mutter to each other in a conspiratorial fashion, make notes, or otherwise react to their study. Instead, there was the sort of silence usually found in tombs, before, only seconds later, the video resumed. Nobody had moved. Nobody had spoken. But _something_ had taken place, Phil was almost certain.

"These guys look like you; did you call some friends, or something? Guys?" When his whispering failed to gain to draw a response, he didn't think much of it. It was only when he turned that realisation hit him, a cold, sick dread that felt like laughter, like a table to the face.

It may have been the dark of the corridor, and the flickering grain of the camera-feed, that lent the scene its sense of unnatural horror, but Phil didn't think so. Not could it be blamed on the sense of unease he had cultivated thought the trip thus far, the winding journey through the tunnels with their suited statues. Even the claustrophobic underground couldn't take full credit for the snowball of white noise stuffing itself into his skull.

It was, in the end, a mixture of things, an ouroboros where one element could not function without the other. The pure terror on the faces of the aliens behind him—an alarm which bordered on hysteria—would not have felt so final if there remained a chance to sneak away and question them...

 _"So...who's after you?"_

 _"We've been here too long already."_

Pieces, previously disconnected, fell perfectly in to place, the worlds worst jigsaw puzzle. Honestly, it made sense; he had always assumed that the pursuing aliens would be a different species, vigilantes angered over their planets near destruction.

But humans hunted humans—why should things be any different in space?

Phil's hand felt too heavy when he raised it; it caught against the empty air and he could feel the swirls of breeze against his cheek more keenly than the floor beneath his feet. Trapped in an unreality of fearless terror, it seemed that the world may well not exist—he may well not exist—save for that fragile, human hand waving like a white flag.

The guard-agents standing in ranks in the shadow of the corridor did not wave back. The glow of the plasma guns directed at his chest was from some sort of nightmare, a lime-green haze, hideously, sickeningly real.

The burn at the base of his neck itched.

A sheepish laugh bubbled unwillingly from some vestigial region of his throat, a strained noise that sounded more like a sarcastic sob.

"Is it too late to say 'wrong room'?"

There was the sound of a gun being cocked and all hell broke loose in that claustrophobic, subterranean corridor.


	9. Chapter 8: Accidental Bloodbath

"Smiley! Smiley, where's my car? Did you borrow it? You should have told me, you silly girl!"

This was the greeting Smily received upon her return home. Naturally, having no semblance of a clue what had happened to her mother's car, she was a little confused.

"Mum, I took the bus," She disengaged from the embrace to look her mother in the eye. "I _always_ take the bus."

Unaware of any form of ill-doing—at least, any beyond the pale—Mrs Sundae gave her daughter a small smile, tapped her fingers gently against the girls nose before walking off.

"Ah well, must have been that _boyfriend_ of yours—haven't seen him all day," She raised her voice so that it echoed out from the kitchen, disembodied teasing turning pointed. "Your 'guests' are also mysteriously absent. Zach and Phred won't tell me anything..."

She let the statement hang, certain that her daughter would fill the blank. No response came.

Smiley hurtled up the stairs. It would have been nicer—easier—to say she took them two, three at a time, but the girl wasn't that neat with where she placed her feet; it was more like falling upwards. She took them all at once and somehow emerged on the upper floor unscathed.

Into her room—the door was open, not closed as she had left it. She thrust a hand under her bed, hoping for the silent reassurance of metal on her fingers...

Instead, there was a crackle of something thinner, more brittle. Tactile and shallowly indented with whorls and swirls of something.

Hesitantly, unsure if she truly wanted to see, Smiley pulled the note from beneath her bed. A note. Not the weapon she had hidden away.

An innocent note, folded to oblivion, the space in-between the creases stamped with familiar handwriting. Phil's writing.

 _Don't panic. I'll keep it safe._

 _Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast._

 _Phil._

Zach and Phred found her like that later, kneeling by her bed, face void of expression, the last vestiges of a bitter smile on her lips.

• **~*{0}*~•**

"Run!"

No one was really sure who had shouted that. Maybe it was Viz—gave the the order seconds before he shoved Phil out the way. Maybe it was Diz, as he seized Quiz by the wrist and spiralled off down the corridor. Maybe it was Phil, dragging Diz to his feet when he tripped. Maybe it was Quiz, who hooked his fingers in Viz's collar and forced him to join the mad dash away from danger.

Whoever it was, wherever the yell came from, it echoed and reverberated and chanted in a thousand voices. _Run, run, run_...it built to a crescendo and pounded through air that was being slowly shattered by the subtle fizz of laser fire. Neon green flashed laughingly about them, missing flesh by teasing millimetres and spearing into corrugated steel with deadly ease. Limning everything with a sickly glow, it proudly displayed the shredded metal it had hit; everything Phil could easily see was green and broken.

They were running blind, Phil realised, with the dim coherence of someone lost dreaming. This was not a passage they had been through before, nor was it one he recalled from his previous visit. He stretched his arms out before him, some vague, unthinking thought deciding that that would help.

Realistically, he knew that if he collided with anything, he would be shot before he could fully realise what was happening. Thoughts like that were stuffed into some dark recess of his mind that was quickly becoming cramped.

Their chase was surprisingly noiseless. Laser shots did not have the same sonic, auditory impact as typical weapons. Theirs was a hiss, a susurration like scissor teeth closing about velvet. They smelt differently too; of ozone, hot metal, and chlorine. Most people said hell smelt of sulphur, but Phil would be willing to bet they were wrong.

Anyone listening in on the situation might have found the cause to laugh. Despite the perceived drama of those who were running, there was no way for a casual observer to ignore the fact that everything was occurring to the percussive drum-beat of feet slammed on metal, panting breaths, and that slippery gunfire. Lit in green, there was a certain absurdity to it that was horrifying enough to induce the opposite reaction—just like the nonsensical paradox of being happy enough to cry, Phil reckoned that their situation was dire enough to make someone laugh.

They turned a corner at breakneck speed. Then another, another, another. For one, long moment, there was nothing but corners. The world was one endless corner that they were bound to turn from then until judgement day.

There was a bright square of light at the end of the corridor, a patient halo in the dark. Phil could have screamed in relief; the elevator, running from the basements of the facility to the upper floors.

 _If they could get there, they would be safe._

 _If they reached it before the guard-agents, they could get away._

Phil risked a glance over his shoulder and found himself staring into his own eyes, reflected in hundreds of aviator shades that were far too close for comfort.

Drawing a ragged breath, he squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to keep running. Hurtling through complete blackness now seemed more comforting than the idea of seeing how close their pursuers were.

Without seeing it, Phil slammed into the back wall wall of the lift and bounced off with the same noise a dodgeball makes after a particularly violent throw. There was an indent where his forehead had collided and a smear of blood on the metal from his freshly bleeding nose; concussing himself by running into a wall had never felt more like victory.

Hardly a step behind, the aliens joined him, bouncing off the walls and each other like brightly coloured pinballs. One of them had the presence of mind to press the keypad, not caring where they went in the facility as long as it took them away from the subterranean nightmare of the lowest floors. Somewhere above, the motors for the lift whirred to life, pulling tentatively at the worn cables.

From his spot on the floor, Phil could see the advancing agents—black and white blurs against more black and white—through the sizeable gap between the doors. Stumbling to his feet, he pressed a second destination button and held it down with as much force as he could muster, locked in the conviction (as we all have been, at some point) that pressing the button harder would somehow make things happen faster.

The lift doors began to close with the blithe unconcern of a deaf, old woman crossing the road, completely oblivious to the car speeding her way.

Viz, gun still in hand, was taking careful aim at the agents; the power strip on the gun read **low**. In an attempt to conserve the shots he had left, Viz was lining the agents up, taking out small groups with shots to the head that punctured through bone and continued on to the next victim. Bodies littered the corridor, and like any the remains agents simply cambered over their fallen brethren and kept coming. Laser fire still scoured towards them—Diz, Quiz, and Phil were pressed against the lift walls in a defeated attempt to avoid it—so Viz was forced to keep ducking back.

A shot went awry. It hit one of the nameless agents in the legs.

The man fell, skidded forwards under his own momentum, and collapsed before them, his head caught between the closing lift doors. They strained to close about the sudden obstruction.

Calmly, with the demeanour of someone flicking lint off a jacket sleeve, Viz aimed the gun at the trapped agents head. The shot killed him instantly; it was the pressure from the closing doors that sent blood everywhere.

It would be nice and neat to say the man's head burst like a balloon. However, as anyone who has actually watched a head collapse will know, there is nothing neat about the affair, whatsoever. Chunks of the shattered skull broke through the skin and brought a thick slathering of brain to the light. Blood didn't seep or drip—it gushed from splits in short jets of dark, hot red. There were no pinks, or soft, supple tissues—the discarded flesh was a stew of burgundy, maroon, and brown, from which the spears of pale bone rose, and all of it looked curdled and thick, day old. In the strange, neon lights, it looked like a Jackson Pollock from hell.

Everyone in the elevator cart stared in silent horror. Blood flecked doors closed on the oncoming horde of faceless, expressionless attackers, unnoticed.

Splattered liberally with the inside of a man's head, lights flickering gently, the elevator car swayed gently as it was reeled up the shaft, and decided that now was an appropriate time for music; 80's synth blared from a speaker set somewhere in the ceiling.

 _'I hear the drums echoing tonight, she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation...'_

Nobody in the lift carriage spoke—even their breathless gasps for air seemed too intrusive for the moment. Phil looked down at his feet; something round and gelatinous stared up from his trainer. Bile rose in his throat.

He was sick long before they got to the chorus.

• **~*{0}*~•**

At least the place they arrived was somewhere familiar.

The green corridor looked somewhat worse for wear, not in the manner of a place which had deteriorated through the rigours of others' activity, but in the fashion of something decayed through apathy. Plaster flaked from the ceiling, tiles shifted from the floor, and it was hard to say which was more dingy; the faded wallpaper, or the off-white walls behind it. Still, the layout was welcomely familiar, and they set off towards the aircraft hanger without hesitation.

Behind them, the lift began its arthritic descent to the lower floors, summoned by the agents waiting below.

They raced down the corridor, adrenaline uncaring for the fact that danger had been momentarily suspended, arriving in the suddenly airy warehouse as a single force. As one unit, the group halted, staring at the mess in slack disbelief at the sight that lay brazenly before them, light streaming from the open ventilation hatch with a spotlight-like radiance.

There it lay, their last chance, the culmination of their collective hope.

It looked only vaguely like a spaceship, and a great deal like a head on collision between two freight trains. What wasn't broken was irreparably burnt, and much of it managed to be both. In one word, it was unsalvageable. In two; _devastatingly_ unsalvageable. Upon seeing it, many would have had reasonable ground to disagree that such a complete mess ever had the power of flight to begin with.

If you ever managed to find yourself in a situation where your entire survival depended on you finding a cup of cold Coke, and someone handed you a glass of lukewarm Pepsi, gave you the finger, and ran off into the sunset with your mother, you would have an idea of how the Vizion aliens were feeling at that juncture.

How the hell that situation would come about is as much a mystery to me as it is to you.

Footsteps pounded towards them and Phil—who was, arguably, the least affected by this fresh predicament—slammed the button beside the corridor entrance, sending a sheet of metal plating, previously concealed in the ceiling, to block the doorway. Seconds later, numb, determined hands were beating senselessly at the metal, the brains of the agents too far gone to consider the damage that such an assault might lend to their person. Phil swallowed—nothing could hold up against such a barrage for long...

To have any sort of existential crisis (or indeed any form of crisis) now would be viewed by most as a rather poor choice of timing.

Fortunately, the Vizion aliens had never been commended for such things.

"We're doomed," Diz murmured, sounding almost awed by their predicament. "We're actually going to die...its over."

"No. _No,_ it's not. Shut up," Viz snapped, jerking around like a crazed puppet with half its strings cut. "Don't you dare—it can't be over. It won't end like this, it _can't_!"

Quiz was silent. His eyelids clicked wetly as he blinked.

The battery at the door increased sharply in volume, to the point where the piece of sheet metal was shuddering in its frame from unseen blows.

"I'm pretty sure this conversation can happen somewhere else, if you guys don't mind," Phil called out, voice forcibly chatty, conversationally hysteric. "Y'know, in one of those places where death is _less_ imminent..."

Nobody moved. If Phil had been blessed with hair, he was pretty sure that would have been the moment he tore it out.

"Guys? I'm dead serious; we _need_ to _get_ _out_."

Viz rambled angrily. Diz questioned the frailty and futility of life in an increasingly faint voice. Quiz blinked.

Phil's metaphysical self tore its hair out. Everything snapped at once.

"LISTEN TO ME, YOU EXTRATERRESTRIAL FUCKWITS." The force of that voice took everyone by surprise, Phil included. He was further shocked—but not wholly disheartened—to recognise it as his own.

"I HAVE COME TOO FAR TO BE TAKEN DOWN BECAUSE YOU ARSEHOLES CAN'T HANDLE YOUR OWN GODDAMNED MISTAKES. MAYBE IT ESCAPED YOUR NOTICE, BUT I HAVE A LIFE! I'VE GOT SMILEY, AND PHRED, AND ZACH, AND I DON'T _CARE_ WHAT I HAVE TO DO TO GET BACK TO THEM." The words were being wrenched from somewhere deep inside him, some dark hole into which he had forced all the doubts and fears of the day.

"SO YOU SORRY SONS OF ALIEN BITCHES HAD BETTER GET YOUR ACTS TOGETHER," railed the greater consciousness had taken over Phil's voice. "BECAUSE I _SWEAR_ ON MY FUCKING LEFT TOE THAT I WILL THROW THE LOT OF YOU SAD SACKS IN TO THE SUN IF THIS IS HOW I DIE! DO YOU HEAR ME? DO YOU _GET IT_? _WE NEED TO LEAVE NOW_!"

Everything stopped. The fists at the door halted in awe before redoubling their efforts. All three aliens turned to Phil with identical, aghast expressions, whatever thoughts they had had before momentarily suspended. For his part, Phil drew in a deep lungful of air and grappled with the empty spot in his suddenly too-light head, that the voice had just vacated.

Then, without the courtesy of a word, Viz stalked over to the 'spacecraft' strewn over the floor and began to drag a section over to the wall just below the open shaft. When leant against something, the fragment of hull made a surprisingly passable ladder.

"Come along then." Viz's voice was clipped, but dull as old metal. Those he spoke to followed wordlessly; Phil wasn't sure his voice would obey him if he tried.

One by one, they ascended the scrap pile and began to force themselves up the ventilation shaft.

The chute was made from slick metal, polished and oiled within an inch of its metaphorical life. Grease from these clean ups had nested in the few indents that, in another, more forgiving world, would have made for ideal handholds. Phil gritted his teeth as yet another of his nails filled with the sludge of grease, the squelch of it almost audible. His trainers found no purchase but slipped and slithered, almost joyous in their uselessness, and he regretted having not removed them. With the pounding on the door threatening to give way to an attack and his own panting breaths heavy in his ears, Phil hauled himself inch by painful inch up the shaft.

Tumbling out in to uncaring daylight was the most painful way to greet that afternoon, and Phil hated it with a passion. The asphalt of the roof sandpapered every inch of skin on show and chewed his hoodie to pieces of gummed felt. Things like that should have been minor concerns, when compared with the larger ruin of the day, but Phil rained inaudible curses upon the fresh inconvenience nonetheless as he ran headlong to the innocuous car waiting in the carpark.

Everybody spent several long second frantically yanking on their respective door handle before realising that Phil needed to unlock it, an activity that took the better part of a minute filled with fumbling and yelling. As the car unlocked and the group tumbled inside—Phil in the drivers seat, Quiz beside him, Viz and Diz sprawled across the backseat—they were treated to the not-so pleasant view of garage doors, hidden behind panels of graffiti, sliding open.

" _Drive!_ " it was a day of orders, that one. Who was giving them, and who was obeying, were secondary concerns.

With a jerk, Mrs Sundae's stolen car stumbled forwards, ambling placidly down something that Phil was just now recognising as an airstrip. Like a shark captivated by a golden lure, the agents cars left the safe caves of their garages and swarmed after them. Phil felt something in his hands crack, as he tightened his grip on the wheel.

Snarling—almost screaming—Viz ripped his shades away from his face, single eye blinking rapidly in the sudden light. He removed the blinking power cell from the gun and forcibly replaced it with a rectangular component that he wrestled from the glasses, all previous care in that area abandoned. Immediately, the weapon's power-level leapt from **low** to **full**.

Diz hesitated for a stretch, before reaching into his pocket. From it, he pulled a sleek, silver revolver; one with six, silver bullets, and a wooden stock stained with something dark.

Smiley's gun.

Phil filed that away under Things To Steam About Later.

"So," he ventured, wrestling with the uncooperative gearstick. "Seeing as you guys are seasoned criminals, d'you have any good advice for someone driving a get away car?"

Surprisingly enough, Diz answered.

"Yes, actually. One; don't get caught."

Phil resisted the urge to snap at the obvious, his attention riveted by the road.

"Two; make sure you have the faster car."

A sleek, black machine filled the rear view mirror, all gleaming bodywork and snarling engine. Hungry black. Funeral black. Mrs Sundae's car rolled sedately, like a shopping trolley drifting down an isle.

"Three; know the surroundings. If possible, drive at night to throw them off."

Phil had no idea where they were—somewhere that was all at once a cramped confine and an endless expanse. Somewhere in west-country? Daylight beat down on them, unmarred and blinding.

"And failing all of that..." Diz clicked the safety switch on the revolver, lining it up with the cars in the back window. They reached the main road with the same jarring suddenness with which they had left it only a few hours ago. Traffic streamed thickly in both directions.

"Drive like you don't mind dying."

Viz smashed one of his elbows into the glass of the rear view the same second Phil floored the accelerator and sent them hurtling forwards in to the melee of traffic waiting on the long road to freedom.


	10. Chapter 9: A Night Without Marshmallows

Metaphorically speaking, there are two types of backseat drivers; the first is your mother, sat in the passenger seat like a malcontent duck, yelling because you happened to edge over the speed limit in a twenty zone.

The second was a megalomaniacal alien sprawled over several seats to steer a car going at a ridiculous speed, screaming at you because your brain had finally caught up with the situation and you had folded in upon yourself like an existentially depressed lawn chair with a quiet 'holy shit' and refused to drive.

As they barrelled down the motorway at speeds the designers of the small car had never envisioned, Phil pondered, as multiple voices raged, laser guns sparked, and car tyres screamed, the fact that these things aren't always metaphorical.

As car chases went, theirs was probably not the most dramatic. Blackout drunks in hummers had wreaked more carnage in a single night than the solitary fiat speeding its way down the A30. But, as a person subject to car crashes could testify, the smallest incident could feel monumental when your life lay on that thin line between continued, painless existence, and the slow death you faced when being mangled by a careless lump of hot metal. Sliding into a ditch feels like plummeting off a cliff. Losing control on icy roads feels like a roller coaster from some sick nightmare. Airbags sucker punch the unsuspecting with force that would make Muhammad Ali proud. This...

There was no comparison to what this was—parts of truckers spiralling past the window, collisions happening, left, right, and centre, weaving their way through the fabric of disaster like a particularly capricious needle—

Holy shit.

Not helping was the fact that Diz was driving. Diz drove like a man who's having a seizure paints; badly. He drove as though there was a bomb strapped to the car which would detonate if he didn't switch gears every five seconds. If there was a vehicular equivalent for throwing yourself bodily down the stairs, this was it. Apparently, contorting yourself enough that your head was under the dashboard as you drove somewhat hindered your performance. Who knew?

Quiz was helping—

"Roundabout!"

Another series of screams. A Sudan to their left swerved into the dividers.

Phil amended: Quiz was trying to help. Unfortunately for everyone involved—mostly for the blue alien himself—communication between Diz and Quiz was...not the best.

"Go left!"

"Left?"

"Right!"

A yank of the wheel sent the car veering merrily into oncoming traffic.

"You said right!"

"The other right! As in, you were—" Quiz pinched the bridge of his flat nose. "Just-just go left."

"THERE IS NO 'OTHER RIGHT'!"

"Diz—"

"YOU WERE A NAVIGATOR FOR THE ENQUIRY, FOR ALPHIM'S SAKE! YOU _KNOW_ THERE'S ONLY ONE LEFT!"

Imagine a bad soap opera and a comedy going at 95 mp/h, because that's pretty much what it was.

Viz was still shooting at whatever was happening behind them. Phil was pretty sure that they were no longer being followed, and even more certain that their pursuers were being at least somewhat hindered by the general disarray they were causing. Like the dad who does everything in his power to avoid the unmanageable mistakes his wife calls children, Viz stolidly ignored that fact and kept firing. Phil wondered, the heat of a nearby explosion warming his cheek, what role he played in that imaginary family; anxious, wine-addict mother, or cool older cousin who occasionally does meth?

Finally, its reserves run quite dry, Mrs Smiley's car gave a noncommittal splutter and a heaving, shuddering lurch, and shrugged itself off the road to roll to a rather resigned spot on the shoulder. The occupants looked at each other in universal horror as, with the abstract air of smugness held only by nonfunctional inanimate objects, the engine gave a last, hearty cough and settled into long overdue retirement.

They were out the car in the next second. The one after that saw them hooking their hands under the lip of the car's chassis and they had over turned it by the passing of the next few moments (the aliens contributing more to this endeavour than Phil who was, despite his best efforts, still a fallible human and not endued with some some freakishly powerful, extraterrestrial strength). As the corpse of a vehicle rolled gaily down the incline of a ravine, Phil reflected that, when none of them spoke, they actually made for a good team.

With the cars zipping past them regaining their fluidity, now that they had taken their tomfuckery into a ditch, the renegades slipped down the incline in the vague hope that the agents would fail to notice their absence and pass them by. As plans go, Phil would be the first to admit that it was not particularly good, nor was it a plan in which he had much faith. But sometimes, a simple strategy triumphs over the general idiocy of the world; the agent's black car sped obliviously on, ignorant of the car in the ditch and the figures that crouched under it until long after night had fallen.

Crawling around the forest in the dark was, Phil decided, one of the less enjoyable ways to spend an evening. In fact, he would go so far as to say that it was not an enjoyable activity under any circumstances. By the end of the hour, he had conclusively decided that forests in general were a bad idea and that anyone who disagreed was clearly dealing with some deep-rooted issues. By the time they reached an acceptable clearing, evenings and darkness in general had also been ousted from Phil's mental list of enjoyable things.

Viz had not explained why it had been imperative for them to reach a forest. Diz had not explained why he had Smiley's gun. Nobody had explain what the _actual_ _hell_ was going on...

Which all changed, as it often does, with a campfire made of damp, spitting wood, a clearing slick with wet mud, and a distinct lack of bonfire related niceties such as marshmallows.

As with the backseat driver situation, these things are usually more metaphorical.

• **~*{0}*~•**

There are certain people that the world at large knows not to trust. Even in the direst of circumstances, their help is to be met with tepid caution, whether it is freely offered or otherwise, regardless of whether or not other aid is readily available. Diz was one of those people; his honesty was universally regarded as being at the height of unreliability.

He was also the only one Phil could demand answers of.

 _The less you're aware of the better, as far as I'm concerned..._

 _Quiz! He doesn't even know the full story..._

So, he faced Diz, exasperation and malcontent having become dangerous, a dry-weather crackle of tension in his voice, and the alien relented, with all the good humour of a condemned prisoner. To either side of him sat Viz and Quiz, neither quite recovered from the disheartening shock of their decrepit space shuttle; Viz kept turning the irreparably mangled remains of his glasses, handling them as gently as one would a living thing, and Quiz seemed to have melted in on himself, dissolving like a blob of candle wax. Between them, Diz sat rigid, a still, knife-blade figure, stern, bitter, and immobile. Opposing him over the wetly crackling fire, Phil liked to think he looked the same.

"Tell me." To him, his voice sounded distant, as though someone slightly behind him had called out. "Tell me everything. You owe me that."

Diz didn't blink. The firelight caught in the protruding orbs of his eyes, blurs of radiance moving like lava-lamp fluid through the inky sea of soulless black. His voice was a low, lyrical hiss, seeping like venom through thinly smiling lips.

"Should I tell it like a story?" Diz rasped. Fire caught oddly about the scales of his face, making the skin pitted and shadowed. "Since we're all gathered so _nicely_ about the fireside, should I tell it like a story? _'Once upon a time...'_ Is that what you want to hear? Or is this to be some kind of confession? ' _Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.._.'"

Phil folded his arms and held the other's gaze with the authority of someone much older, much harder, and much more dedicated than he.

"Tell me," he repeated, softer that time; like the smoke curling above the flames, like a great, tame, grey cat, whose thick pelt hid claws. Something snapped sharply within Diz's glassy eyes, their warm iridescence gone, and words spilled from him like water, thoroughly dousing whatever warmth the evening might have hoped to harbour.

"I suppose," Diz began, rotating one of his hands in a contemplative manner. "I should start at the beginning, as this won't make much sense to you otherwise. Our planet is located in the Andromeda Galaxy and, for as long as anyone can recall, we have been at war with the neighbouring world, Alphim. I think it started over a quarrel about ownership of our shared moon?" Here, his tone turned questioning, and he looked to Viz for confirmation that failed to come. "It doesn't matter; the moon's gone, in any case. Regardless of reason, we have been fighting for too many years to count. Such is the extent of the war, that military service is now mandatory for everyone old enough to fight.

"Quiz and I met in an indoctrination centre. I was training to manage dreadnought vehicles, and he was studying navigation in preparation for entering our intelligence force, the Enquiry. We got along relatively well, but such was the nature of war that we only knew each other a short amount of time; I was shipped out soon after completing my first course, due to a shortage of fighter pilots on our main front, which is a series of asteroid belts and uninhabited planetoids.

"My commander there was Viz. I was one of fifty men in that squadron, and that squadron was one of ten in our sector.

"So, for three years, we fought the battle, first on the main front, then on tertiary, then running insurgence missions. Meanwhile, Quiz was accepted into the Enquiry as a Control Navigator for basic operations. All of us thought we were doing the right thing..." Diz trailed briefly off, voice dying and dissipating like smoke. In his fire lit eyes, Phil could see the ten, dreadnought ships flying out to do battle with nebulous others, streaks of gold in the vacuum. For a few moments, the ships and the lives within them were tangible, but then Diz blinked and continued, and they were washed away by the veritable ocean of black. This time, there was an odd quality to Diz's voice that made Phil shiver—at least, more than Diz's voice usually made people shiver; Diz was a thing of the uncanny, and people very rarely felt fully at ease with him—it was a depth that felt beyond all oration or explanation but unavoidably consuming. Not his customary rage. Not then. It was somehow deeper than anger.

Phil didn't like to think what it might be. Even the campfire seemed to shy from him.

"17/13/1854. 1200 hours. All ten squadrons were issued an Enquiry officiated order to run a reconnaissance mission over some territory on the western flank that we had allegedly regained in a recent push. The operation was to be overviewed by the Control Navigators, and we were denied the use of our own.

"They were our government. We had no reason not to do as they said.

"We trusted them."

The fire cooled and shrunk in its cradle of earth. Many ghost stories had been told by those that sat by its side, but the raw bite of this one set it in squirming retreat. Calmly, Diz took twigs from a pile situated close by and coaxed it back to vigorous life, only resuming when the meek dance of the flames had recovered. In the fresh light, Phil could see the green fingers quiver.

"As was usual for missions where we would be out of the visual range of the other ships, we kept in communication through radio comms. The Enquiry told us that the area was deserted, that the enemy had been chased out. Our job was to check the perimeters and surveil the damage done to the land that was now ours.

"Everything was going fine.

"Then _Valiant_ , our flagship, stopped responding. We asked the Enquiry to check, and they told us that a dust storm was interfering with the signal for distance communication. It was a very dusty area, so no one questioned it.

"So nobody panicked when _Gladiator_ when silent. Or _Warrior_ , or _Imperial_ , or _Dauntless_.

"It was only when they took _Champion_ that we realised. Somehow, the signal blockers failed that time...we heard the first explosion...then static. When _Destroyer_ got to her...the ship...the crew...there was nothing left. And then _Destroyer_ was gone too...

"It was an ambush, of sorts. We had been lead to a place as fodder for the enemy, and we were dropping like _flies_. The Control Navigators were silent and the line to the Enquiry had gone dead.

"The last of us tried to gather together, to try and fight, just three ships left: _Duchess_ , _Saviour_ , and ours, _Merciless_. Allegedly, the last two found each other, went down fighting, as it were. I don't know. We never reached them; Alphim's forces got to us first.

"We hadn't been rigged for a fight, you see—there didn't seem to be a need for heavy artillery. It made no sense to drag precious supplies out with us on a simple recon mission, in our own territory, no less. So we had nothing but light arms when they came for us. Half a fleet, fully equipped. We...we didn't stand a chance." In Diz's liquid eyes, the sparks of those ships were still falling, cinders. Phil shuddered but found himself unable to look away.

"The last thing I remember is the engines failing, and trying to wedge what remained of _Merciless_ behind a crag of rock, out of sight. Then...nothing; I woke up in an Enquiry cell." There, Diz paused, as though to properly absorb the gravitas of his own story. Whatever emotion lay in his eyes had moved beyond bitterness, beyond the most wrathful of rages, transcended anything so simple as hate or grief. It was ugly and raw and Phil felt strangely captivated by the sheer mania if it. Utterly still, the only sign that Viz was paying attention was the fact that he had stopped playing with his broken glasses. Stripes of wet painted Quiz's cheeks, and they glistened in the fire.

"I didn't know," Diz continued at a length, voice carefully measured and smoothed table-cloth flat with the care of one who is undertaking minimal tasks to distract from something larger, "if anyone else had survived...it seemed...unlikely. The ship...well, it wasn't in the best condition. When the Enquiry agents came to speak with me, they wouldn't tell me how many had died in that massacre. Not for want of me asking; I made the same request of them that you made of us—' _explain, you owe me that much'_. And they did." The open wound of a smile made its return, jagged and empty. "A distraction, a diversion, they said. Something to occupy the attention of Alphim's fleet while a countermeasure snuck in behind them. We were bait. All ten ships, an inconsequential, government sacrifice. And because I had failed to die alongside my crew in battle, I was to be executed—it would be bad for morale if such a story got out, they said.

"And that was it. No thanks for our service, no remorse for the deaths of those we had known for years...we were pawns. They betrayed us for some provincial victory and planned to send us to our deaths where the enemy failed."

If life were a film, or book, or play, the odds are that it would have started to rain at that point, if life had as keen a sense of the dramatic as any of those examples listed. Disappointingly, the air remained dry and light, the sky dark but cloudless, and Phil solemnly reflected that even tragedies could be done poorly. There were no clouds to weep at the revelation, no heavens scream in mourning, no thunder leant the scene the immensity of its pathos. Instead, the fire crackled with is dutiful cheer and, somewhere in the distance, an owl began to call. Maybe, to someone, somewhere, it made sense; violent and bloody tales of war imparted on as routine a night as one could hope for, in the sanctuary of quiet, a liminal space beyond time. Maybe, to someone, it made sense...

Not to Phil.

Surely the enormous magnitude of this massive injustice deserved some sort of outcry? Yet nothing in the demeanour of the world suggested that whatever divine force ruled the universe had taken offence at the travesty. Perhaps this was all the retribution those trusting soldiers would receive; three faintly maniacal terrorists hell-bent on destruction on the most arbitrary of bases, like the misdemeanours of school kids.

Outside of Phil's mind, the story, in all its acrimony, continued.

"I had fought for them for years, I was not about to lie down and die for them like a good, little dog. I tried to escape...it did not go as planned; I failed three times before Viz found me, along with a few others from the squadron, who had survived their respective crashes. None from ours...several from _Duchess_ , a few from _Saviour_...but none of ours...hardly anyone had made it out...

"Even less survived our break from the Termination Camp they had us in. Four of us got out alive; me, Viz, one of the engine crew from _Champion_ , and the commander of the _Valiant_. He...he died shortly after...two days into the fortnight we spent wandering...

"Which is where Quiz comes back into the story. I knew that the Enquiry were unlikely to initiate a search on one of their own. Viz hacked into a net link and found his address and—"

"You all showed up without warning," Quiz murmured suddenly, a tone of reminiscence entering his voice, something that was fond and sad in equal measures. "Three bloody strangers in army uniforms raving about how the government lied to them. Quite the shock at 2200 hours."

Diz continued, apparently unconcerned with the interruption, for there was no snappish reprimand delivered to Quiz. "We stayed there for several weeks—our kind heal fast, which is something of a blessing—and in that time, we—Viz and I—came to the conclusion that something had to be done.

"They lied to us. They had probably lied to others. I shudder to remember how many raids we conducted where the enemy were ' _conveniently_ ' out of the way. And yet, nobody questioned them. Their power was absolute. Our whole world was corrupt and no one could see it...

"We could do something. We were no longer part of the system. We could _fix it_...

"It took some devising, but we developed a plan; the Enquiry's foul influence was too widespread to completely eradicate, so...so the whole planet...we would have to end it all, if there was to be peace on that world. Leave enough survivors to start a new system and—"

"You destroyed your own planet," Phil stated flatly. Not questioned; there was, at that point, no doubt in his mind. The aliens were capable, they had their motive, their maniac conviction that they could rid the world of malice, and this is where it began; with a corrupt government and the callous sacrifice of a few ships. Dominos had fallen, butterflies had twitched their wings, and one act of political incompetence had led to genocidal peace-keepers.

"Not quite," Diz muttered, sounding a little abashed. "Our planet is protected enough to withstand incendiary missiles from Alphim; we wouldn't have even made a dent in security. We needed to start smaller. So, we resolved to find a smaller, more vulnerable planet, rid that of any evil it may harbour, and return to exact our revenge only when our forces were assured.

"And to find such a planet, we needed a navigator."

Quiz, who had started to uncurl, shrivelled when Phil turned to look at him, as though he feared the condemnation of one, insignificant gaze, having avoided all but the most paltry of accusations thus far. Had he looked, he would have seen no such judgement in Phil's eyes, only the wearied expectance of someone who knows that they are to be exhausted further before the tale is out; no longer was Phil angry, or confused, or damning—just tired, down to his bones, the knowledge of this new hour weighing heavy in his skin. In truth, they all were, even the fire, which had once more begun to dwindle. Nobody moved to relight it.

"Quiz came with us when we left. He saw the sense in what we said. The engine man...he...he didn't come with us, put it that way. We stole a fighter ship, something light, fast, and small, and left the solar system.

"They chased us, of course, and we went further and further afield to avoid them. Eventually, we left the Andromeda Galaxy altogether."

"And you ended up here," Phil whispered, voice sapped to the lowest murmur. Night had fallen, and downy reams of shade clung like soot to his words. Diz inclined his head, and his own sentences cast shadows as he grimly brought about the conclusion of his tale. Neither Quiz nor Viz had reacted to the summarised retelling of their shared history, but sat stone-faced, monolithic sentinels to the grotesque distortion of their lives. Both had receded, without moving, swallowed by encroaching darkness until only their merest impression was visible; the crook of several elbows, the edges of twitchy fingers, the curves of naked scalps. Gargoyle creatures, nightmares.

"And we came here," Diz agreed quietly. "With the intent to destroy the planet, in order to test our weaponry. Only to find the planet we chose largely innocuous. Too innocent." His eyes narrowed slightly, ember limned slits of black. "Largely thanks to you. What we extracted from the minds of you and other abductees proved that the goodness of your species outweighed the level of corruption in your present society. Your survival was put to the test, a final test in which we forced you to show ingenuity...and you passed. When given the choice, you rescued your friends and prevented the annihilation of your home. You 'defeated' us. Earth was to be spared...and that would have been the end of it..."

Something had to give; there was blame in the situation and it sought an outlet as a river seeks a bed. As rivers will, it found a channel, a natural avenue through which things can flow...

Live wire sharp, Diz rounded on Quiz.

"And we would be long gone, by now, if _somebody_ hadn't decided to sabotage me!" Bayonet eyes fixed firmly on Quiz and, burningly, refused to let him escape. Quiz howled something shrill and negatory in wounded response. Viz looked silently on, the glasses in his hands still.

There was more to the argument, infinitely more, but if you had asked Phil Eggtree to regale you with the specifics, he would be hard pressed to tell you, having vacated the scene shortly after the first verbal blow was struck. A peculiarity of the forest is that moving a few yards through the trees can completely obscure your starting point, particularly if you walk at night; the weak firelight failed to stretch itself out to him and swiftly gave it up as a lost cause. In strange silence, in striped darkness, Phil began an earnest contemplation of his trainers and the earth they stood on.

Many things could have been discovered, during what promised to bean intensive period of soul searching, revelations forfeited by the insistent blare of a phone. Phil's phone.

 _19 missed calls. 16 new messages._

The incoming call was from Smiley's phone and it was unthinking instinct that made him that the call so casually, despite the rather obvious signs that he might want to prepare himself for a more dramatic confrontation. But he didn't, and so was especially jarred when the first words the voice on the phone uttered were not _'hi'_ , or _'how are you'_ , or even _'I missed you'_ , but—

"Phill Eggtree, what have you done with my mum's car?!" A frantic voice somehow managed to both whisper and scream. Caught off guard, Phil could only answer honestly.

"Um, it's in a ditch at the minute. On a highway—don't ask me which one." Then, recognising that this was not the most consoling thing to lead with: "hey, it's fine. The car's fine, you'll just have to get someone to tow it. Check the news, we might be on that."

Unfortunately for him, this reassurance made lamentably headway in pacifying the enraged girlfriend tapping her foot many miles away. Another voice on the line emphasised this regret with a quiet expression of: " _you're fucked, mate_."

"And where," Smiley quivered, " _where_ is my dad's gun, Phil? Where is it?" Her tone trembled with the sort of tremors that could easily transition into either tears or a slap.

"Diz took it," Phil answered, trying to inject his numb honesty with some thought or feeling, and achieving partial success. The day's labours had been vampiric, leeching at his emotions, and clawing them into some semblance of order was a wretch. "I've got it now, Smiles, but there's no bullets left. It's safe, but there's no bullets."

A low whistle from the phone. "Diz? _Really? Wow._ He's _fucked_."

"Why are there no bullets left? Phil, what the hell is happening?" Smiley's voice was forceful, all hard-edges, despite the wavering that suggested that it might break. It sounded like slammed doors and torn pages, and, for once, Phil held all of the careful gathered jigsaw pieces and was at a complete loss as to what to do with them.

"Why'd you think, Smiles," he mumbled tiredly, speaking more to the leering, uncaring faces cradled by the tree's branches than he did to her. "There was a shoot out. Their ship's ruined, and there was a shoot out, and a highway chase, and now we're sat in the woods. There's no marshmallows and everything is awful." That last was meant to sound comical, but escaped in a dry sort of croak that rendered it more distressing than amusing. Truths leaked from him, like water from a broken tap. "The ship was completely destroyed, Smiles, there's no way they can get away in that. And now their military is here looking for them, because..." He trailed distantly off, trying to compress the revelation of the last hour into comprehensible words. His exhausted mind failed him. "Oh hell, Smiley...I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do anymore."

"So come _home_."

And the world crumpled as though it had been constructed from cards, the simplest solution blowing it flat.

 _Go home._

 _Forget it all._

 _Leave everything behind to wilt among the trees._

Phil shut his eyes. Faintly, he could hear the snappish voices behind him growing louder, harsher.

It is invariably, when we face the world alone, without the support of our friends, in times of great pressure where we learn absolute truths of our character; once upon a time, Phil had, somewhat proudly, believed himself a hero. In many respects, he was not wrong. Time and time again, he had saved his friends—he had believed he saved the planet, however false that assumption proved to be—from disaster. But he had never accounted for the fact that such heroism had ultimately resulted from selfish desires and childish resilience: he had wanted to go home early; had had wanted to escape back to earth; he had released his friends from their dreams in order to keep them; he had released everyone from the facility for similar reasons—Diz in particular because he was necessary. Phil was neither cruel, nor indifferent; but pragmatism and altruism rarely get along, and most are either of one breed or the other.

Phil was a pragmatic man. And he was tired of the endless game.

"Come home," Smiley said.

So he went.

Briefly, he considered the rectangular remote still lodged in his pocket, considered leaving it as a parting gift, before deciding against it. The ship it would have otherwise connected to was useless, and the reveal of this fruitless device would only serve to twist that knife. He would keep it, he decided, as a final reminder, a memorial for a childhood that had felt so much brighter, so much more triumphant than the espionage of the world as it stood.

With a departing glance back towards the source of the muffled shouting, Phil set off towards the sounds of the highway in the distance.

With minimal regrets, Phil started the long walk home.


End file.
